Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Criminal Trials

Mr. Clinton Davis: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the Government's policy with regard to the report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee concerning evidence and procedure in criminal trials.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Mark Carlisle): The report is under study in the light of the debate in another place and the many memoranda and other comments that we have received, but we shall not reach conclusions on this important report until this House has had an opportunity to debate it.

Mr. Davis: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware of the grave disquiet in the legal profession, as expressed in another place, about most of the major observations contained in this report? Is it not time for the Government to express their view? When does the Minister anticipate that the House will have an opportunity to debate the issue?

Mr. Carlisle: The opportunity for a debate is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we will not reach conclusions until there has been the opportunity for a debate on the report. I am aware of the many views that have been expressed on it and of the comments that the hon. Gentleman makes. We have to weigh up the various issues involved in this important report.

Mr. Fowler: Will my hon. and learned Friend beware of special pleading on this

report? Is not the overriding interest that of the public? Does he not agree that, while everyone accepts that the rights of the innocent should be protected, there is also a genuine public interest in seeing that the guilty are convicted?

Mr. Carlisle: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It seems that the approach we should make to this report is to see that the rules of evidence of our courts are appropriate for the present day as the courts seek to do their best to arrive at verdicts in individual cases.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: Despite criticisms of the jury system and the imperfections in the procedure of the system, will the Minister at least take this opportunity to affirm his faith in it and say that with all its imperfections it still provides the best method and remains the best bulwark for the liberty of the subject?

Mr. Carlisle: Of course I have faith in the jury system and I willingly accept what the hon. Gentleman says about its importance. But the fact that one believes in the system does not mean that one ought not to review the rules of evidence and the type of evidence which can be put before a jury.

Fireworks

Miss Fookes: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will change his method of collecting statistics relating to fireworks accidents, so that they become available sooner than at present.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Lane): The information on which the statistics are based has to be obtained from the hospitals. The complete statistics are available early in the following year, which allows ample time for action before the next fireworks season, but we are arranging for the work to be speeded up as far as possible.

Miss Fookes: Is the Minister able to say whether the figures are likely to be higher or lower than last year, when, I understand, 1,260 were injured, 234 seriously?

Mr. Lane: It is too soon to give even an approximate indication of the trend this year. We are speeding up the returns


from the hospitals. What my hon. Friend said about the disappointing figures last year is true, but I remind her and the House that until then we had succeeded in more than halving the casualty rate over the previous 10 years. We want to resume that improvement.

Mr. John Fraser: Is it not a fact that the injury rate last year was up by 20 per cent. but that when the figures were published it was too late for anyone to form a judgment and for any action to be taken? The event of Guy Fawkes night had gone out of people's minds. May we have a promise that the figures will be published earlier this year, so that if action needs to be taken by manufacturers or the House it can be taken in good time?

Mr. Lane: I do not accept the hon. Member's first charge. We had plenty of time, even on the last occasion, to take a number of new steps before last month's fireworks season. The figures for last year were published in April, and we hope to do considerably better on this occasion.

Vandalism

Mr. Knox: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what research is being undertaken by his Department into the nature and extent of vandalism and into the most effective ways of combating it.

Mr. Carlisle: The Home Office Research Unit is undertaking a number of related studies of the extent of vandalism and the factors associated with it. It is hoped that the results of the research will suggest possible ways of reducing this kind of delinquent activity.

Mr. Knox: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that research is needed not only into the attitudes and motivations of vandals but into the impact on the community at large, since this tends to be a crime affecting the whole community?

Mr. Carlisle: I entirely agree. The studies to which I have referred will include work on the extent to which vandalism impinges on the lives of ordinary people. We regard it as important that we should not concentrate entirely on offenders, to the exclusion of any concern for the victim.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Since this involves the question of police manpower, how can the Metropolitan Police, for example, adequately cope with the problem when wastage exceeds recruitment and there are well over 5,000 vacancies? Is there anything more that the Minister can say about the claim by the London police for differential pay?

Mr. Carlisle: There is a Question later on the Order Paper dealing with the Metropolitan Police. I agree that the number of policemen is an important consideration in keeping down vandalism. I remind the hon. Member that for the first lime we now have over 100,000 policemen, which is 8,000 more than we had three years ago.

Mr. Tinn: In those studies will the Minister consider one of the most frequently experienced although perhaps less serious manifestations of vandalism—the misuse of aerosol sprays in public places? Will he see what can be done about this, rather than relying on the slightly complacent reply that the present deterrents are sufficient, given the experience that the present deterrents against this kind of abuse are manifestly insufficient and ineffective?

Mr. Carlisle: If the hon. Gentleman is asking whether I shall introduce legislation to ban the sale of aerosol sprays, the answer is "No". That would not be justified. I am aware that they are used from time to time by youths committing offences of vandalism.

Criminal Damages Act 1971 (Arrests)

Mr. James Lamond: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been taken into custody and released within 24 hours under the Criminal Damages Act 1971 since June 1972.

Mr. Ashton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimates he has made of the total number of arrests made under the Criminal Damages Act 1971 since its inception.

Mr. Carlisle: I regret that this information is not available.

Mr. Lamond: Is the Minister aware of the disgraceful incidents in Colchester on 3rd and 4th October this year when 25 trade unionists and students returning


by bus from a perfectly peaceful demonstration in Shrewsbury were arrested, kept in custody for a lengthy period and had their homes thoroughly searched for no good reason? Is he aware that incidents of that kind add weight to the belief of trade unionists that the police and the law are picking on them? Will the Minister have an inquiry made into the Colchester incident?

Mr. Carlisle: I am grateful for the opportunity totally to repudiate what the hon. Gentleman said at the end of his question, which is unjustified on any possible basis. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the police act with impartiality on all matters. With respect, I do not see how the Colchester incident arises out of the Question, but I shall certainly write to the hon. Gentleman in detail about that incident, as I have written to other hon. Members.

Driving Offences (Foreign Vehicles)

Mr. Hamling: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prosecutions for driving offences have taken place, in the last year for which figures are available, of drivers of heavy goods vehicles registered abroad.

Mr. Carlisle: I regret that this information is not available.

Mr. Hamling: Is the Minister aware that complaints have been made in my part of South-East England about heavy lorry drivers from the Continent speeding and committing other motoring offences and getting away with it?

Mr. Carlisle: Indeed, I am aware of and very much concerned about the position arising from the increasing number of vehicles coming to this country and the difficulty of enforcing action against drivers for a breach of the traffic regulations whilst they are here. We are studying the whole situation.

Mr. Costain: Does not my hon. and learned Friend appreciate that one of the most serious offences that lorry drivers commit is bringing into the country lorries that are overweight—an offence of which Folkestone has had some experience? Will my hon. and learned Friend give his support to the police in enforcing the law?

Mr. Carlisle: Certainly, the police will do all they can to enforce the law, but I ask my hon. Friend to accept that there are major practical difficulties in summoning before our courts people who are not normally resident here.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling). Many people are saying that foreign drivers are getting away with it whereas British drivers are being prosecuted. Will the Minister try to get the necessary information?

Mr. Carlisle: With the greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, we cannot get this information. Our statistics do not distinguish between heavy goods vehicles and goods vehicles and do not contain information about the country of origin of drivers. On the other hand, I am aware that this is a matter of concern and that there has been an increasing number of cases in recent months.

Forensic Pathologists

Mr. Tinn: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied with the present numbers of forensic pathologists ; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Carlisle: The present numbers are generally sufficient to meet current demands. The future needs of the forensic pathology service are being considered in the light of the recommendations of the Broderick Committee.

Mr. Tinn: I am glad to note that this is being considered. Does not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the forensic pathology service has to some extent been the poor relation of universities on the one hand and the National Health Service on the other? May I draw his attention to the survey of more than 25,000 autopsies performed at the London Hospital over a period of five years, which shows more than 5,000 cases of unnatural death, of which 263 were not shown to have died an unnatural death in the coroner's officer's report—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is getting very near a statement.

Mr. Carlisle: We believe that the present number of forensic pathologists is sufficient for current needs. I realise


that there are problems about future recruitment, but at the moment outside London and the Home Counties 28 pathologists are nominated by the Home Secretary to assist police forces and inside the Home Counties and London the teaching hospitals are used.

Fire Brigades Union

Mr. John Fraser: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to have a further meeting with the Fire Brigades Union.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Robert Carr): I have no present plans for a further meeting.

Mr. Fraser: Will the Home Secretary meet the union when the report of the Pay Board on the pay negotiations is published? Will he ensure that the report on the firemen's pay settlement will be made as soon as possible, in the interests both of the public and of good industrial relations? Will the Minister publish the report, which will be of considerable interest not only to firemen but to policemen, ambulance drivers and many other workers in the public service?

Mr. Carr: I have no plans, I have not made any promises, and I have not been asked to promise, to meet the union after the publication of the report. If, when the report is completed, the union wishes to see me I shall consider that request. Questions on how Pay Board reports are dealt with are for my right hon. Friend.

Prison Visits

Mr. Thomas Cox: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisons in the United Kingdom have facilities for the care of young children while prison visits are taking place.

Mr. Carlisle: Most prisons in England and Wales provide some facilities for mothers visiting with young children. Thirty-two already have accommodation available in which children can be looked after during visits and several others are planning similar facilities.

Mr. Cox: Does not the Minister agree that that is a very small number? Is he not aware that many mothers with young children have to make long journeys to visit their menfolk in prison, and that

in the area in which the prison is sited there are often no facilities for eating, or for feeding young children? Is he further aware that often there is no privacy to enable parents to talk on personal or domestic matters? Will he look at this matter with greater urgency?

Mr. Carlisle: I agree that the number is still small but I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is increasing. I fully take the hon. Gentleman's point about the importance of proper visiting facilities. Clearly, there should be opportunities for wives and children to visit prisoners, and it is right, when a wife has to take young children with her, that facilities should be available for looking after them. In all designs for new prisons we are including such facilities.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Having regard to representations on this matter from those concerned with prisoners' welfare, is it not proper that there should now be a comprehensive review of facilities for and expenses of those people who wish to visit their relatives in prison?

Mr. Carlisle: We are carrying out a review with the Department of Health and Social Security on the question of financial assistance for wives to visit their husbands in prison, and we hope to have the result of that review fairly shortly.

Mr. Stallard: Does the Minister accept that we welcome any extension of these facilities, because many of us have been concerned for several years about the lack of facilities in prisons? Does he agree that one interim solution might be to transfer as many prisoners as possible back to prisons nearer their homes? I have in mind prisoners from Northern Ireland who are in Parkhurst. Their relatives in Belfast have difficulty in visiting them, and when they arrive there are very few facilities.

Mr. Carlisle: I am not prepared to comment on an individual case without notice, but I can say in general that of course the ability to receive visits from families is one of the matters taken into account when considering the placement of any offender in a prison. But the hon. Gentleman must realise that this is not the only consideration. Security is another consideration which has to be taken into account, as well as the type of sentence


the person is serving and the type of offence for which he has been convicted.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Does the Home Secretary intend to publish this report, when it becomes available, prior to any decision by the Government? It would be helpful if we could see the report and make representations before any decision is made.

Mr. Carlisle: Perhaps I overstated it when I said, "report". I should have said, "review". I cannot answer for certain, although I should think it is unlikely to be the type of review that would be published, but there will be a chance to ask Questions on it in the House.

Prisons

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received from prison officers about conditions in Her Majesty's prisons.

Mr. R. Carr: Views are exchanged between my officials and the Prison Officers' Association on a wide variety of matters as part of the normal consultative process, but I have personally had several meetings with representatives of the asociation about major issues—in particular, the control of difficult prisoners.

Mrs. Short: As we have a prison system which is scores of years out of date, and as the Prison Officers' Association has warned the right hon. Gentleman that the system is rapidly moving towards a disastrous situation, does not he agree that we can no longer expect prison officers to carry the responsibility of looking after men in overcrowded conditions, in which they have little or no opportunity of rehabilitation or occupation? What does the right hon. Gentleman intend to do when the prison officers make these representations to him?

Mr. Carr: I remind the hon. Lady that the present Government are taking action which their predecessors signally failed to take. There is a far larger prison building programme than for many decades past. That is the first thing one can do to make the physical conditions better. Secondly, there has been a decline in the number of prisoners and, I am glad to say, while this decline has been going on there has been an increase in the

number of staff. I am not saying that the number of staff in relation to the number of prisoners, and the conditions in which prisoners are kept and in which officers have to work, are satisfactory, because they are not. But the fact is that that we have neglected the prison system for a long time and the present Government are paying more attention to it now than has been paid in our lifetime.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his Department has found serious inadequacies in the physical conditions at Strangeways Prison, Manchester, and also overcrowding? What is the present extent of the overcrowding and what action is the right hon. Gentleman taking?

Mr. Carr: There is still serious overcrowding. I think—speaking from memory—that it is still, unfortunately, a fact that about one-third of our prisoners are sleeping three to a cell, very often in cells originally designed by our Victorian grandfathers to hold one. But with the decline in the prison population and the increase in prison staff, that proportion is declining, too, and at least the proportion living three to a cell is considerably smaller than it was three years ago.

Shop Hours

Mr. Evelyn King: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now introduce legislation in order to amend the Shop Hours Act so as to enable working women to shop in the hours of their choice.

Mr. Lane: My right hon. Friend cannot foresee an early opportunity for Government legislation to amend the Shops Acts.

Mr. King: Does not my hon. Friend agree that there are huge quantities of married women doing useful jobs who at present are compelled by circumstances to do their shopping in a single luncheon hour? Would it not be better if there were greater freedom under the law for shopping hours to vary, so that the times during which West End shops are open need not be the same for suburban or village shops? In such freedom, would not a more sensible shopping pattern emerge, as in many other countries? Is it not time that we caught up?

Mr. Lane: I agree that it would be good to get more scope, but it is not generally realised that there is a good deal more scope even under the present law than some people think, particularly for late opening, and we have had to give higher priorities to other areas in Government legislation.

Dr. Summerskill: Will the right hon. Gentleman resist any such amendment to the Shops Acts? Although it might be more convenient for some working women, the majority of people who work in shops are women, who would resist such a change and would not want to work the long hours that shop workers do on the Continent and in America.

Mr. Lane: That shows how wise we are to go cautiously.

NACRO Organiser (Prison Visits)

Mr. Deedes: asked the Secretary of of State for the Home Department what representation he has received from the Prison Officers' Association on his decision to permit Mr. Curtis, South-East Region organiser of the National Association for the Care and Rehabilitation of Offenders, to visit Her Majesty's prisons.

Mr. R. Carr: The association has told me that it is opposed to visits by Mr. Curtis.

Mr. Deedes: Will my right hon. Friend say whether the allegation is correct that this officer belonged to an organisation known as PROP—an organisation with which my right hon. Friend has said he will not negotiate—and that that is why exception was taken when he visited Norwich Prison, when he was refused admission, and that subsequently the Home Office reversed this judgment and permitted him to visit prisons?

Mr. Carr: It is true that Mr. Curtis did in the past belong to PROP, an organisation started by ex-prisoners to further prisoners' rights and which, for many reason well known to the House, I did say I was not prepared to negotiate with. But Mr. Curtis left that organisation some time ago, and I think it is right that he should be judged on his present merits. I am sure that the House would agree with that. It is for the governor of a prison to decide to allow a particular visit. Governors are

asked to take account of both the views of the prison staff and their judgment about the effect of a particular visitor on discipline in the prison. They have to take into account the views of prison staff, and the governors have now been advised that prison officers object to visits by Mr. Curtis.

Mr. Dell: Does that answer mean that in practice Mr. Curtis may be allowed to visit prisons? Is not the test the work which this man could do? Is it not wrong that he should be prevented from making visits? Is not that the real effect of what the right hon. Gentleman is saying?

Mr. Carr: I do not think I said that. I stressed that Mr. Curtis's membership of PROP was in the past, and I hoped that everyone would judge him on his present activities, and not on his past, whatever that may have been. It is also the fact that governors must take into account the views of prison staff. The views of the prison staff are as I have described them, but that does not mean to say that they will always remain so. One cannot ignore the views of the staff. I would have thought that Opposition Members would agree with that.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Is this not an unsatisfactory position? It means, in effect, that the Prison Officers' Association is able to exercise a veto over a man who left PROP because he disliked its methods, has now joined a very responsible organisation, known as NACRO, and is himself acting very responsibly? It is an unfortunate attitude for the POA to take in exercising a veto in relation to a man who has seen that the organisation with which he was once associated is not the kind of organisation to which he wants to belong now, and who is therefore really accepting the Home Secretary's views about PROP.

Mr. Carr: It is no good pretending that this is an easy matter, because it is not. In considering the current attitude of the prison officers one has to remember what they suffered not much more than a year ago, partly because of the activities of PROP. They are human beings, as we are, and we cannot expect them to forget what happened. I do not think that the attitude is directed personally at Mr. Curtis, but it is a strong feeling which the prison officers have


towards PROP and for the moment towards anyone who as recently as just over a year ago played an active part in it. I am not saying that this will—I hope it will not—persist for all time. We must be understanding and persuasive on both sides of this question.

Nationality Law

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will introduce legislation to amend the law on nationality to enable men of foreign nationality who marry British women to obtain British nationality.

Mr. Lane: My right hon. Friend has no proposals in mind for such legislation.

Mr. Hamilton: Will the Under-Secretary of State tell the House whether it will be possible to include such an amendment to the Government's proposed legislation on equal opportunities for men and women? Has his attention been drawn to Resolution 696 of the Council of Europe, which was passed in January of this year, to the effect that spouses of different nationalities should have the right to choose their nationality irrespective of sex—in other words, that each sex should be treated in the same way?

Mr. Lane: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will wait for the Bill on equal opportunities. One possible consequence of what he is suggesting is the opening up of another loophole in the immigration control which men might be able to marry their way through. I hope that he is not advocating such a loophole. We shall be able to debate the matter further on another occasion.

Dr. Glyn: Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a further indication that we should be considering not nationality but the definition of citizenship?

Mr. Lane: Yes. We are doing this. I remind the House that very few foreign and Commonwealth countries confer citizenship on men who marry their nationals.

Dr. Miller: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that this is another example of flagrant sex discrimination? Will he give me one good reason why it should be possible for a British male citizen to

marry a foreign girl and for the girl to accept his nationality, and not possible for a British woman to do the same thing with a foreign male?

Mr. Lane: I am not accepting any charges of sex discrimination from a party whose Home Secretary in 1969 reversed a rule so that it would operate against that which the hon. Gentleman is suggesting.

Fines (Non-Payment)

Captain W. Elliot: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he has had with magistrates on the non-payment of fines ; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Carlisle: Home Office officials have recently had exploratory discussions on a number of aspects of fine enforcement with representatives of the Magistrates' Association. I welcome the fact that such discussions take place on a variety of matters concerning the administration of justice.

Captain Elliot: Will my hon. and learned Friend examine the action that has been taken by the Manchester City justices? During the last quarter of 1971 a total of 243 defaulters were committed to prison forthwith, and they all paid up at once. The process was continued during 1972. It was so successful that the cashier had to attend the court to collect the fines. In addition, the justices were able to make adjustments and changes for deserving cases. Could not the other justices learn from the Manchester justices?

Mr. Carlisle: I am sure that what Manchester says today the rest of the country will say tomorrow. I take note of what my hon. and gallant Friend says. Taking the country as a whole and bearing in mind the only relevant figure, which is the amount of the fines written off, the amount is between 2 per cent. and 3 per cent. of the total amount imposed.

Mr. Harper: Is it not a fact that the prisons are already bulging at the seams? Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that what is suggested by the hon. and gallant Member for Carshalton (Captain W. Elliot) is impracticable? Does he agree that we should readjust the attachment of earnings so that we can recoup the fines in that way? As a


former magistrate, I found that when a man or woman came to court and was either out of work or on the dole he or she could not pay the fine. Surely some thing could be done in that respect?

Mr. Carlisle: My hon. and gallant Friend's point was that the defaulters paid up and did not go to prison. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the most appropriate way to enforce the fines is, where possible, through the attachment of earnings scheme. The existing provision is that people cannot be sent to prison in default without a means inquiry.

Mr. Grieve: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the situation regarding the payment of fines has become very much worse since the machinery was changed by the Criminal Justice Act 1967? Does he think that the time has come for a review of the whole procedure to ensure that fines are paid more readily, so that even the small percentage to which he has referred is not left outstanding?

Mr. Carlisle: We are having discussions with the Magistrates' Association on various aspects of fines enforcement. Although it is true that the volume of money outstanding is greater than it was before the 1967 Act, the total amount of fines imposed is higher. The proportion which in the end remains unpaid is much the same as it was before the 1967 Act.

Sir Elwyn Jones: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman resist any pressure to fill the prisons with debt and fine defaulters?

Mr. Carlisle: This Government have thought a good deal about the right hon. and learned Gentleman's point and have taken action in attempting to achieve that aim.

Police Recruitment

Mr. Molloy: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to aid recruitment of police for the Metropolitan area.

Mr. R. Carr: A special section of the Metropolitan Police undertakes visits to schools and to Her Majesty's Forces at home and abroad, and arranges the participation of the force in careers exhibitions and conventions. The force is currently running a recruitment campaign

on which the commissioner has been authorised to spend £100,000 in the current financial year. A similar sum is proposed for next year. In addition, it benefits substantially from the central recruiting campaign, on which over £600,000 is being spent this year.

Mr. Molloy: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comprehensive reply. I am sorry that I must say, despite all that he has said, that it has not aided the recruitment of police in the Metropolitan area. Does he accept that the real reason is that there is not sufficient appreciation of the qualities now required in a police officer, the extra duties which he has to do and the unsocial hours which he has to work? Would not an increase in the police constables' salary and the differential between the constable and middle-grade officers help to aid recruitment? Should not there be a realistic appreciation of the work of the police in the Metropolitan area which is reflected in their remuneration?

Mr. Carr: The House must realise that the main problem arises not so much from the lack of recruitment, which still remains reasonably healthy, as from wastage. Wastage is a serious matter. The commissioner is currently making a serious inquiry into the various causes of waste. I have no doubt that pay and conditions are among the important causes of wastage. As from 1st January Metropolitan Police officers will begin to have the benefit of a substantial increase in their rent allowance. That, I believe, will deal with one of the more important problems.

Sir H. Harrison: Will my right hon. Friend ensure that during the recruiting campaign some attention is paid to the universities and to the recruiting of graduates?

Mr. Carr: Yes. I do not think that the police force has been getting a big enough share of graduates in recent years. That is something to which I very much hope not only the Metropolitan Commissioner but chief constables throughout the country will give special attention.

Mr. John Fraser: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what part of the campaign will be directed towards the recruitment of more coloured police officers in London?

Mr. Carr: Certainly, that is very much a part of our wish. The numbers are increasing but they are doing so slowly. We want to see much higher numbers. I can assure the House that that is the view of the commissioner and his staff. I am not sure that it is wise to make too directional a recruitment effort as long as we make it clear, as we are doing increasingly, that coloured policemen are very welcome and very much wanted.

Mr. Dykes: Does my right hon. Friend agree that in many ways conditions are as important as pay? Will he consider carefully various examples of the need for better conditions, such as better housing and, more specifically for police constables, smaller examples, which are as important in many ways—namely, the provision of good canteen facilities to replace the existing facilities, which in many instances are inadequate?

Mr. Carr: I agree with the matters raised by my hon. Friend. To some extent we are in a vicious circle. A major improvement in conditions would require more men. The lack of men is one of the chief problems in improving conditions.

Animals (Experiments)

Mr. Sydney Chapman: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the Home Office return of experiments performed under the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 in respect of experiments performed during 1972, in comparison with the statistics for 1970 and 1971.

Mr. Lane: The number of experiments, which had remained fairly constant in the years 1970 and 1971, decreased by about 5 per cent. in 1972. This is a welcome reduction, but it would be unwise to attach particular significance to a single year's figures.

Mr. Chapman: I welcome the reduction of 300,000 in the number of experiments on animals in the last year. Nevertheless, does my hon. Friend realise that over 5¼ million experiments were conducted and that 86 per cent. of the animals involved were not given anaesthetics? Although a certain number of experiments on animals may be necessary, does not my hon. Friend feel that 5¼ million is far too high a figure?

Mr. Lane: I know that there are strong feelings on this matter. A figure of 5 million experiments is large, but we must keep the matter in perspective and appreciate the benefits obtained, both by human beings and by animals, from these experiments. The system is administered with strong safeguards, which we watch all the time. The declining trend is welcome.

Mr. Burden: Will my hon. Friend ask the Home Secretary to take into consideration the fact that the Act of Parliament governing vivisection is almost 100 years old and that the conditions envisaged in that legislation are quite different from those which obtain today? Is it not time that this matter was looked at again and the legislation brought up to date?

Mr. Lane: We shall bear in mind what my hon. Friend said. I know that he has paid a great deal of attention to this matter over a number of years. I repeat that the system of control and supervision is a strong one and we have no evidence that it is being abused.

Private Detectives and Security

Mr. Fowler: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will carry out an inquiry into the employment of men with criminal records as private detectives and in the private security industry ; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Carlisle: My right hon. Friend does not believe an inquiry is justified. He is actively considering a scheme for disqualifying people with criminal records from employment as private detectives, but he does not think that this method of control would be appropriate with respect to the private security industry.

Mr. Fowler: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that reply. Is he aware of the growing evidence that many men in the private security industry, including some private detectives, have previous criminal records? Is he also aware that it is an unsatisfactory situation that a person who has been convicted of an offence within his own occupation is able to return to that occupation immediately afterwards?

Mr. Carlisle: We have no evidence of such a degree of abuse as would justify


an inquiry. Clearly, the points made by my hon. Friend are important.

Shoplifting

Mr. Adley: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he proposes to take to encourage the implementation of the recommendations contained in his Department's report "Shoplifting and thefts by shop staff" ; and if he will encourage supermarkets to concentrate on the prevention of shoplifting and the elimination of deterrent accusations by supermarkets against those suspected of shoplifting.

Mr. Carlisle: The report, which has been widely distributed to the retail trade and placed on sale, recommends all retailers to concentrate on the prevention of shoplifting. We have no evidence that supermarkets make deterrent accusations against persons suspected of shoplifting.

Mr. Adley: I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend on the thoroughness of his report. Is he aware that I could provide him with evidence showing that some people are having a thoroughly miserable time as a result of the activities of people such as those mentioned in the previous Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Fowler), particularly in relation to certain supermarkets which use store detectives of the type he mentioned? Will the Minister of State please take action now to implement the recommendations of the report, which will have the simultaneous effect of deterring the thief and protecting the innocent?

Mr. Carlisle: I do not know what my hon. Friend means by people having a thoroughly miserable time. Surely the question is whether the accusation made about shoplifting is or is not justified. The working party did not recommend legislation. We have sent out the working party's recommendations to the various interested bodies, and I hope that they will be implemented.

Legal Aid

Mr. Pardoe: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many individuals who appeared in court in the last year for which figures are available received legal aid ; and what

was the average amount paid to the solicitor or barrister representing them.

Mr. Carlisle: I assume that the Question refers to criminal cases. The 1972 figures are : for criminal proceedings in magistrates' courts, 147,181 ; for criminal proceedings in the Crown court, 64,473 ; for appeals to the Crown court, 6,103 ; and for appeals to the court of Appeal (Criminal Division) 984. The average amount paid to legal representatives was £110 for a case in the Crown court and £36 for a case in a magistrates' court. These averages include cases in which co-defendants were jointly represented.

Mr. Pardoe: The Minister of State may be aware that his answer shows that the legal aid scheme is of considerable benefit to the legal profession, but can he be sure that it is of similar benefit to those who really need it? What proposals has he to ensure that people get justice, whether or not they can afford to pay through the nose for it?

Mr. Carlisle: I am sure that the legal aid scheme is of benefit to the legal profession, in the same way as the National Health Service is of benefit to doctors, but I equally believe that it benefits those who obtain legal aid. For example, about 64,473 people were granted legal aid in Crown court proceedings last year and only 328 applications for aid were refused.

Mr. Heffer: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that some people, particularly unemployed male divorcees—and I have two such examples in my constituency—are unable to receive legal aid simply because they are unemployed, although they are giving financial aid to their ex-wives? Will he examine this problem? I can assure him that such people are in a very difficult situation.

Mr. Carlisle: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I think the question he asks probably relates to civil legal aid, which is a matter for my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor. If the hon. Gentleman cares to write to me about any case relating to criminal legal aid, I shall consider it.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Will the Minister of State take the opportunity to refute the suggestion made on one occasion by the Lord Chancellor that the legal aid scheme is being abused by lawyers


defending clients who have no proper defence? Are not such cases more a matter for the Bar Council, and is it not right that the extension of legal aid means that many more people are being properly represented and their cases being properly put before the courts?

Mr. Carlisle: It is right to say that almost everybody who appears in a Crown court is represented, either by paying privately or through legal aid. On the other hand, we are obviously concerned about the volume of cases before the Crown courts which might be tried in magistrates' courts, and the hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have set up a committee under Lord Justice James to examine the delineation of responsibility between those two courts.

Oral Answers to Questions — CBI AND TUC (MEETINGS)

Mr. Meacher: asked the Prime Minister what further meetings he has planned with the TUC and CBI.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Anthony Barber: I must inform the House that since my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister it taking the chair at the tripartite discussions on Ireland, I have been asked to reply.
I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend told my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Norman Lamont) on 8th November.—[Vol. 863, c. 231.]

Mr. Meacher: When the right hon. Gentleman does meet those bodies, will he explain how he justifies the fact that over and above the 2–3 billion pounds which the Government will now have to borrow to cover next year's deficit they are encouraging the nationalised industries and local authorities to borrow from abroad at a rate of a further 2 billion pounds per year, so that by this time next year we can expect to be in "hock" to the tune of 5–6 billion pounds? Since, in the present world economic situation, one-eighth of our national income is committed to foreign debts, does this not show reckless housekeeping?

Mr. Barber: The alternative is to pursue the sort of policies that were pursued by the Labour Government. The

facts are that at the end of October the reserves in this country amounted to $6,761 million and the level of public sector borrowing in foreign currencies amounted to $2,131 million. That compares with the situation in June 1970, when our reserves stood at only $2,791 million, with $3,506 million in short-and medium-term official debt, the bulk of which was due to mature very soon. Therefore, we are now in a much better position.

Sir Robin Turton: Will my right hon. Friend comment on the appraisal of the future growth rates made yesterday by the Director-General of the National Economic Development Office?

Mr. Barber: The Director-General of the National Economic Development Office this morning issued a statement making clear that certain accounts of yesterday's meeting of the National Economic Development Council were incorrect. It was not the case that Ministers, management and unions agreed that the Government's economic target were unobtainable. What the council, including the unions and management, agreed was that we should aim to maintain growth of output at the highest possible level permitted by physical limitations of supplies of oil and other materials, and that industry could absorb an overall cut of 10 per cent. in oil supplies without widespread loss of output. That was the view not only of the Government but also of unions and management.

Mr. Healey: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware that there will be disappointment on both sides of the House that reports to the effect that he courageously admitted yesterday that the assumptions on which he based his Budget strategy had been undermined by the energy crisis now appear to be untrue and that he is still showing the same complacency as he and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry have been showing for so many weeks?
Will the right hon. Gentleman comment on the trade figures published yesterday which show, contrary to Government claims over the last few weeks, that the volume of imports has not increased since January whereas the volume of exports has increased by 9·6 per cent.? I am sorry. Obviously I was overcome by the


Government propaganda to which I referred. I meant to say that the volume of exports had not increased since January, whereas the volume of imports had increased by 9·6 per cent.

Mr. Barber: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, in the national interest, will agree with everyone else in the country that the efforts being made by our export industries at present are first-class. No one would seek to deny that who has the national interest at heart. The simple fact is that when the right hon. Gentleman speaks in the way he does, he does this country no service whatsoever. If I may say so, he would do well to heed the words of Mr. Len Murray, who said that people who exaggerate temporary problems do Britain no service at all.

Mr. Healey: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We have spent seven minutes on this Question, but I shall call the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey).

Mr. Healey: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to impugn my patriotism for quoting figures published yesterday by the Department of Trade and Industry?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for the Chair.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL UNION OF MINEWORKERS

Mr. Skinner: asked the Prime Minister if he has plans for holding future talks with the leaders of the NUM ; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Barber: I have been asked to reply.
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply which my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) on 29th November.—[Vol. 865, c. 207.]

Mr. Russell Kerr: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May we have the Chancellor of the Exchequer repeat that answer? This is a very important Question. We want to hear what the right hon. Gentleman has to say, and it was impossible because of the noise.

Mr. Speaker: I have great sympathy with the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Russell Kerr). I could not hear the answer. I ask hon. Members on both sides of the House to be a little quieter. Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer please repeat that answer?

Mr. Barber: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply which my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) on 29th November.

Mr. Skinner: If the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not have an opportunity to meet the miners' leaders in the very near future, will he explain to the House whether it is good housekeeping to send half a million tons of steam coal to France in the middle of an energy crisis? Will he also state specifically whether the £45 million offer which has been made by the National Coal Board to the NUM is the maximum?

Mr. Barber: My right hon. Friend and I have said on a number of occasions that there can be no question of any settlement outside the guidelines of stage 3.

Mr. Skinner: I did not ask that.

Mr. Grylls: Does my right hon. Friend agree that apart from the damage the miners are doing to the nation and to full employment they are also prejudicing their own future and standard of living by their action, especially at this time of the year, and that it is very unwise?

Mr. Barber: Yes, and I think that the House and the country will note the point which I put a short time ago to the Leader of the Opposition, namely, that the nation is entitled to know whether the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to speak out against industrial action in support of a settlement outside the limits laid down by this House. That has never been answered by the right hon. Gentleman or by any right hon. or hon. Member on the Opposition Front Bench.

Mr. Concannon: On the next occasion that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer meet NUM representatives, will they explain to the national executive members, and, through them, to a great many of my constituents,


how it is that even the highest paid men in the industry, working five days a week in one of the most energy-sapping, dangerous and unsocial jobs in the country, will, if they accept the coal board's offer, still be getting under £40 a week? [Interruption.] I repeat that the highest-paid miners will still be getting under £40 a week. Will the right hon. Gentleman also try to explain to them how that situation can exist when miners read every day about the profiteering going on in the country? Did the right hon. Gentleman read in this morning's papers how a painting was sold for £340,000 in an auction which raised more than £2,600,000—a painting which, if it were hung up in a miners' welfare club, would probably have darts thrown at it?

Mr. Barber: I am happy to say that the points which were put by the miners' leaders when they came to see my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and other Ministers at Downing Street were a little more pertinent than those put to me by the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon).
The coal board's offer is more than most other groups will be able to negotiate under the code and will improve the miner's relative position. It is the best offer made to the NUM in negotiation. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, if a comparison is made between average weekly earnings in coal mining and average weekly earnings in manufacturing industry on the basis adopted by the Wilberforce Report, the full offer of the NCB will more than restore the relative position of coal miners established as a result of the Wilberforce recommendations.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTERIAL MEETINGS AND CONVERSATIONS

Mr. Grimond: asked the Prime Minister if recording machines are used to record any of his or other Ministers' meetings or conversations ; and on what conditions.

Mr. Barber: I have been asked to reply.
As is generally known, important international telephone conversations by the Prime Minister have been, and continue to be, recorded so as to minimise the risk of mishearing or misunderstanding.

Recording machines are openly used to record some conferences, meetings or interviews which would otherwise be recorded by verbatim writers. Neither I nor other Ministers use recording machines to record meetings or interviews without the knowledge of those present.

Mr. Grimond: Will the acting Prime Minister consider letting the House know the rules and conditions under which these machines are used and what is done with the recordings? Obviously, this is a matter which can be most dangerous. On the other hand, posterity may well wish to hear what the Chancellor of the Exchequer sounded like in his heyday.

Mr. Russell Kerr: They will not believe their ears.

Mr. Grimond: If we had recordings of Pitt, Gladstone and Disraeli, and of Cabinet proceedings, they might be extremely interesting. I appreciate the possible dangers, but will the right hon. Gentleman consider laying before this House the conditions under which recordings are made and how they are kept?

Mr. Barber: I think that I answered that question when I said in my main answer that neither I nor other Ministers used recording machines to record meetings or interviews without the knowledge of those present.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Nevertheless, will my right hon. Friend consider making available to the Shadow Cabinet machines of the type referred to in the original Question? Surely it is unsatisfactory that some Opposition Members should apparently be unable to recognise accounts of meetings, at which they have been present, given to the Press by the office of the Leader of the Opposition?

Mr. Barber: That is a very good point.

Mr. Stonehouse: I should like to ask the Chancellor two questions. First, are telephone callers to Ministers warned in advance that their conversations are due to be recorded? Secondly, is a Post Office licence applied for for this recording?

Mr. Barber: On the first point, I should think not, and, on the second, I do not know.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Will my right hon. Friend arrange for the record of the Prime


Minister's telephone call to Tokyo to be placed in the Library?

Mr. Benn: Will the Chancellor tell the House whether he and other Ministers have listened to recordings of what they said to the electorate in 1970? If not, why not?

Mr. Barber: One advantage of the way that we proceed in this House is that we can rely on the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite to remind the country of what we said and we can remind the country of some of the things that they said—and are still saying.

DIESEL FUEL (TAXICABS)

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Varley, Private Notice Question.

Dame Irene Ward: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sorry to bother you, but could you kindly explain why, when I have Question No. 37 on the Order Paper dealing with the requirements of taxi drivers all over the country, I should suddenly hear that a Private Notice Question in a more restricted form has today been granted? Yesterday I told my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry that I was putting down this Question. I wonder whether he can solve this problem and thus obviate you from explaining why this extraordinary thing has happened. If the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry would kindly answer my Question first, I think that it would be fairer, because I am asking for the protection of taxi drivers all over the country, not just restricted to London.

Mr. Speaker: I have received no request to answer Question No. 37. In making a decision to allow a Private Notice Question I do not give my reasons, but I have regard to the possibility of a Question being reached.

Dame Irene Ward: I think it is awfully mean.

Mr. Varley: Mr. Varley (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will use the emergency powers to ensure that adequate diesel fuel is available to the licensed taxicab trade.

Dame Irene Ward: That is not the Question I asked.

The Minister for Industry (Mr. Tom Boardman): My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs and officials of my Department saw representatives of the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association yesterday and asked for particulars of the main outlets from which they draw their fuel and the extent of any shortfall in supplies. This information has not yet been received. As soon as it is we will explore urgently with the oil industry what can or should be done to help.

Dame Irene Ward: Dame Irene Ward rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Varley, to ask a supplementary question.

Mr. Varley: Is the Minister aware that the assurance given by his Department that the licensed taxicab trade would receive priority is not working out satisfactorily and that oil companies do not seem to be giving the priority that the situation demands?
Does he recognise that, because supplies are so short, many taxi drivers are having to cut down their services at a time when they are most needed in view of the shortage of petrol supplies for private motorists? Does he realise that if the situation deteriorates further it will push more people on to an already over-burdened public transport system? In view of the immense contribution that the taxi trade can make to maintaining essential services, as well as to fuel economy, does he not think that he should have more regular meetings with the taxi trade during this period so that the situation can be worked out more clearly and a satisfactory arrangement can be arrived at?

Mr. Boardman: As soon as this problem was raised my hon. Friend and officials in my Department had discussions on possible proposals. In fact we had anticipated this type of difficulty. We are waiting for the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association to give us certain information. There will be no delay on our part in taking action, if action is found to be necessary, as soon as we get that information. We accept that there is a need to assist people to get about without using their own cars, but at the


same time there must be restraint on the use of fuel by taxis and other users at this time.

Mr. Speaker: Dame Irene Ward, to put a supplementary question.

Dame Irene Ward: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. May I now ask my hon. Friend when we shall get a satisfactory answer? In view of the fact that I am already rather annoyed about the whole thing, may I say that it is about time—[HON. MEMBERS : "Ask a question."] Does my hon. Friend accept that it is about time that the Government took a decision? The taxi drivers have been bothering about this matter, even if the Opposition have not, for quite a long time. Certainly they have been bothering me.

Mr. Boardman: I know that my hon. Friend is particularly concerned whether taxis should be declared public transport. I remind her that at no other time when there has been this type of restraint have taxis been declared public transport, although they have been given special consideration. The reason is that taxis would have an unlimited supply of fuel when others were extremely limited and that could lead to abuse in that people could hire taxis for a whole day and take an advantage which would not be proper in the circumstances.

Dame Irene Ward: That is a silly answer.

Mr. Grimond: While in no way criticising this plea on behalf of taxi drivers, may I ask whether the Minister is aware that if taxi drivers are given priority there will be great resentment in many rural areas where people have to use private transport to get to work because there is no public transport? In London there is still a great deal of public transport available whereas in some rural areas there is none.

Mr. Boardman: I fully recognise the right hon. Gentleman's point. It is a question of getting the right balance, and that is what we are aiming to do.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: I appreciate that my hon. Friend is waiting for figures, but does he realise that as long ago as last Thursday certain suggestions were put forward—suggestions that his hon. Friends the Under-Secretaries of State for

Trade and Industry and for the Environment know about and recognise—that would have made a contribution to fuel saving by taxi drivers and nothing has yet been done?

Mr. Boardman: My hon. Friend will recall what was said by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment during the Committee stage of the Fuel and Electricity (Control) Bill on the Floor of the House. I believe that my hon. Friend was satisfied with that statement.

Mr. Clinton Davis: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the trade does not take his views very seriously at the moment? Taxi drivers are deeply concerned because a number of licensed cab traders have been told by their suppliers that they will not receive deliveries for between eight and 10 days. In consequence, many of them will face financial disaster. Is it not time that rationing was introduced, to get away from this chaotic and haphazard situation, in conformity with the demands that are being made by the trade?

Mr. Boardman: The Association has been asked to give certain information upon which action could be taken. It is for the Association to give us that information. I hope that it will be forthcoming. It was not available a quarter of an hour ago.

Mr. Tebbit: Will my hon. Friend comment on the report in the Evening Standard that oil stocks in this country are down to 46 days? Will he also assure the House that, whilst business motoring is protected, business aviation, which is equally essential, will not be discriminated against?

Mr. Boardman: I will happily correct the impression that appeared in the Evening Standard with regard to stocks. I would draw my hon. Friend's attention to what I said on Monday 3rd December :
Notwithstanding the heavy stocking undertaken by consumers, the indications are that there has been no significant change in total oil company stocks during the last week."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd December 1973 ; Vol. 865, c. 897.]
As for aviation, the Minister for Aerospace and Shipping will be making a statement in due course.

Mrs. Castle: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the evidence in today's Daily Mirror that certain petrol station are remaining closed although they are fully stocked up with petrol? Will he take action, by regulation if necessary?

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are dealing with taxis at the moment in this Question.

Mrs. Castle: Some of them, I should have thought, might, like the rest of us, have been desperately casting around for petrol and finding only closed petrol stations.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Question was about adequate supplies of diesel fuel for the licensed taxi trade.

Mrs. Castle: It is a question certainly of their having supplies of fuel—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Lady said "fuel". Previously she said "petrol". She has now brought her her supplementary question within order and she may put it.

Mrs. Castle: These petrol stations are remaining closed although they are fully stocked with fuel. Will the Minister take action, by regulation if necessary, to put a stop to this discreditable practice?

Mr. Boardman: The right hon. Lady will have seen that arrangements are being made through the Oil Industry Emergency Committee to ensure that certain stations are open throughout the period of daytime. It is a question of avoiding congestion in stations and of ensuring that stocks are kept at a level which will run down over the normal period and not all be absorbed by any form of panic buying for a very short period.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must make it clear that the Question which was put was a narrow Question about the taxi trade. I did not intend to allow questions ranging widely over the whole subject of the present restriction of fuel.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Edward Short: Will the Leader of the House state the business for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. James Prior): Yes, Sir.
MONDAY, 10TH DECEMBER—Until seven o'clock, Private Members' Motions. Afterwards, motion to approve the Sixth Report from the House of Commons (Services) Committee, Session 1972–73, of the landscaping of New Palace Yard.
TUESDAY, 11TH DECEMBER—Supply (5th Allotted Day) : Debate on the Opposition motion on the reorganisation of the National Health Service. At seven o'clock, the Chairman of Ways and Means has announced opposed private business for consideration. Motions on the Grenada Termination of Association Order, the Highlands and Islands Shipping Services, and on the Grants for Guarantees of Bank Loans (Extension of Period) Order.
WEDNESDAY, 12TH DECEMBER—Supply (6th Allotted Day) : When the Defence Vote on Account and the motion on the Army, Air Force and Naval Discipline Acts (Continuation) Order will be before the House.

Motion relating to the Local Government (Successor Parishes) (No. 2) Order.

THURSDAY, 13TH DECEMBER—Proceedings on the Northern Ireland Constitution (Amendment) Bill, and on Northern Ireland orders.

FRIDAY, 14TH DECEMBER—Private Members' Motions.

MONDAY, 17TH DECEMBER—Supply (7th Allotted Day) : The topic for debate to be announced.

The House will wish to know, Mr. Speaker, that, subject to the progress of business, it is intended to propose that the House should rise for the Christmas Adjournment on Friday 21st December.

Mr. Short: In view of the number of alarming stories that we have heard from the local authorities, can the right hon. Gentleman say when the rate support


grant will be published and when we shall debate the White Paper on local government finance? Secondly, when will the White Paper on public expenditure be published, and when shall we debate that? Third, will he undertake that we shall have a fuller statement on Monday on the chaotic energy situation and tell us when we are likely to debate that? Fourth, when is the prayer to be debated on the very important order on import duties which will result in widespread price increases in the new year? Finally, he has told us the start of the Christmas Recess. Will he tell us on what day it will end? When shall we come back?

Mr. Prior: To start where the right hon. Gentleman ended, if I were to comply with all the requests for debates which he handed me today we should be coming back on Boxing Day at the latest. I cannot yet give the House a date for the end of the recess. This must depend on a number of important factors which are well known to all hon. Members. I will give the date as soon as I possibly can, but I hope that the House will recognise that at the moment I just cannot give it and am not prepared to hazard a guess. As for the rate support grant, the House will be asked to agree before the end of the year increase orders relating to 1972–73 and 1973–74, and an order in respect of 1974–75 will be brought before the House for approval in the new year. However, before then—possibly in the next two weeks or so—we shall be presenting a White Paper.
I have nothing to add to the date that I gave last week or the week before for the announcement of the public expenditure White Paper. A debate will have to take place shortly after our return.
I recognise that there is keenness in the House to debate the Import Duties (No. 8) Order. I hope that I may be able to take account of that in my next business statement. I have noted what the right hon. Gentleman has said about a further statement on the general energy situation ; I should like to consider that with my right hon. Friend.

Mr. David Price: When shall we have a debate on the oil situation? Is my right hon. Friend aware that energy is indeed one of the uses of oil but that many of us are very concerned about the supplies of naphtha, which is an alternate use of

light distillates to petroleum, that the present 90 per cent. of last year's level of supplies is totally inadequate for an expanding industrial economy, and that hydrocarbon molecules coming from crude oil go into practically every industry?

Mr. Prior: I am aware of the point about naphtha and the need for time for a debate on the total oil situation, as opposed to the energy situation. While it may be possible, and may be necessary, for a debate to be arranged on this before the recess, it would have to go wider than the oil situation—although that would certainly be in order in part of it.

Mr. Stonehouse: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that there is widespread support on both sides for a debate on the oil situation, particularly in view of the statements which have just been made by the international oil companies that oil is being diverted from the United Kingdom, notwithstanding what Ministers say, under some international oil-sharing arrangement? Is he further aware that the House will expect Ministers to make some statement about this matter, particularly in the light of what the Prime Minister assured the House and the country a few weeks ago about oil supplies to the United Kingdom? Is it not vital that the House should have an opportunity to debate all aspects of this matter before we rise for what might be a three-week recess?

Mr. Prior: These matters are very much in my mind and those of the House at the moment. I will certainly consider the views of the House and the necessity for a debate before Christmas, bearing in mind, of course, the limited time available—

Mr. Leadbitter: Surely it could take the place of the landscaping debate on Monday?

Mr. Prior: Let us be sensible about this and discuss it again in the next few days.

Captain Orr: Can my right hon. Friend say something about Thursday's business? He mentioned certain Northern Ireland orders, but can he say what orders he expects to take after the Northern Ireland Constitution (Amendment) Bill? Also, as regards the three orders which are down for tonight's business, can he say


whether there will be adequate staff in the House, because they represent a potential four-and-a-half hours?

Mr. Prior: As regards the orders for next Thursday, 13th December, they are the devolution order to transfer powers and functions to the Assembly, the modification order to transfer functions in the law and order and finance fields to appropriate Ministers, etc., in this country, and the order to reorganise Northern Ireland departments. As regards tonight's business, the domestic catering staff of the House will have to close down at 10.45 p.m. in order to get public transport home, and, of course, the Catering Sub-Committee and I regret very much the inconvenience that this may cause to Members. I hope very much that we shall not have too many late-night sittings between now and the Christmas Recess, but I am afraid that we now cannot afford the petrol for the domestic staff to have special transport to get home.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: May I ask the Leader of the House whether it is the intention of the Government to renew the state of emergency, which will need to be done next week, and, if that is done, whether the debate on it will be used as an occasion for the Prime Minister to clear up what is now the glaring confusion, which was in no way cleared up this afternoon, between his reaffirmation of the Government's economic strategy—if that is the right term—in this House yesterday afternoon, and the clear fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer modified that strategy substantially before the National Economic Development Council yesterday? This is a major issue bearing upon the energy crisis. We want a debate on that in the widest sense, in which the position of the Government is made clear on this fundamental issue before we go away for Christmas.

Mr. Prior: The House will have heard what my right hon. Friend said this afternoon, referring in particular to the reports emanating from the National Economic Development Council meeting yesterday, but the fact that he has obviously denied certain of the reports emanating from that Council does not show that there is a difference between the two views. But if the emergency

powers have to be renewed, a statement will be made and, indeed, a debate will be necessary. However, this question does not arise today, and I hope that the powers under the Fuel and Electricity (Control) Bill will be sufficient. But if they are not, the Government will, of course, come to the House and make a statement, the emergency powers will be renewed and there will be a debate on them.

Mr. Iremonger: As it looks as if we shall not have any taxis on the streets of London next week unless we can get some satisfactory solution of the taxi-men's problems, will it be possible to fit in a short debate on my Motion No. 93 next week?

[That this House recognises the special problems of owners and drivers of London taxi-cabs, and in particular the problems of owner-drivers, and calls upon Her Majesty's Government not to delay further in determining the new meter rates and to make special provision for fuel to be available to taximen so long as the current shortages persist.]

Mr. Prior: My hon. Friend will have heard the exchanges in the House earlier this afternoon, and I see no reason why there should not be taxis available next week.

Mr. David Watkins: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will find time next week for a debate on Early Day Motion No. 49, which has now been signed by 187 right hon. and hon. Members? Also, may I make the point to him, quite squarely, that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I, who are the principal sponsors of that motion, have no intention of withdrawing it until such time as the subject matter has been resolved by a decision of this House?

[That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the presentation of an humble Address to the Crown praying for the dismissal of Sir John Donaldson, High Court judge and President of the National Industrial Relations Court, by reason of his Court's action in sequestrating £75,000 from the political fund of the engineering section of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, which is the fund as laid down by section 3, subsection (3) of the Trade Union Act 1913, and not the fund used for the day-to-day


operation of the Union, and thereby ensuring that the punishment was solely inflicted on the Union's political activities, namely, support given to the Labour Party and financial assistance rendered to the constituency parties of the Members of Parliament who are also members of that union for their election campaigns and routine organisation, because, if Sir John Donaldson was not aware of this action, he is guilty of gross negligence and incompetence and if he was aware then it was an act of political prejudice and partiality.]

Mr. Prior: No, Sir, I cannot find time for that debate.

Dame Joan Vickers: In view of the defence debate on Wednesday, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he will consider giving a day in the coming Session to discuss the recent report of the Nugent Committee? That will affect a great many individuals, and will affect the constituencies of hon. Members who may not wish to take part in a debate on the defence of the country.

Mr. Prior: Subject to your ruling, Mr. Speaker, I should hope that a debate on Nugent would be kept separate from the debate next week, and that we could find time after Christmas for a debate on Nugent on its own.

Mrs. Castle: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen Early Day Motion No. 94 which has gone on the Order Paper today, supported by Members in all parts of the House, calling for an immediate increase in secretarial allowances so that Members can pay their secretaries an adequate salary? Will he make an early statement on this matter?

[That this House, alarmed by the inability of Members to pay out of their own frozen incomes the salary increases to their secretaries which are urgently needed in the light of increases in the cost of living, or to discharge their own responsibilities to their constituents as fully as they would wish, calls on the Government to make immediate adjustments in the secretarial allowances to Members and to consider as a matter of urgency the need to put both the salaries of secretaries and of Members themselves in a fixed relationship with the salaries of appropriate grades in the Civil Service.]

Mr. Prior: I know that there is great interest in the House and some anxiety on this matter, and I said in the debate on the Queen's Speech that I was looking further at it. This is bound to prove a difficult and contentious matter, particularly at a time when the country is facing economic difficulties and when there is, at least, some difficulty over the operation of phase 3 and its acceptability by other sections of the community. I am by no means certain—but I would not want to make a firm judgment on this today—that it would be right at this juncture for the House of Commons to be seen to be increasing its allowances for any sections of the people who serve it.

Mr. Jennings: Will my right hon. Friend consider scrapping the debate on Monday on the landscaping of New Palace Yard, and substituting for it a debate on the rights of the private individual, with specific reference to the type of advice that Ministers would give to private individuals who legitimately drive up to a garage to get petrol and are refused it when they know quite well that others are being supplied? What advice would Ministers give in such a debate?

Mr. Prior: I should not like to give an off-hand answer to that question. But I must just say to the House that we have been waiting to reach a decision on this business of the landscaping of New Palace Yard for a good many weeks. I have wanted on various occasions to put it on either late at night or on a Friday, but I have specifically refrained from doing so because of the interest that has been expressed in this matter. It really is a bit much when, having waited this while and having chosen the time, hon. Members now say that there is no time for it. I think we should get that debate out of the way and see whether we can find further time for debating these other matters.

Mr. James Johnson: May I ask the Leader of the House a question of which I have given him due notice? As the right hon. Member for Lowestoft, he must know, as I do, of the change in the subsidies for the fishing industry. Can he give us at least half a day, if not a whole day, to discuss this matter, because in view of the change we shall lose the day for debating the finances of the industry?

Mr. Prior: Yes. Because of the changed circumstances, resulting from the fact that there are no longer subsidies for the fishing industry, the House does not have a proper occasion each year to examine the state of the industry, and I think that other arrangements will be necessary I must tell the hon Gentleman that we have usually managed to debate the fishing industry fairly late in the Session, and I should not have thought it was a topic which deserved a debate, at the moment, bearing in mind the other demands being made upon us.

Mr. Biffen: I do not want to disparage the importance of the Highlands and Islands shipping services or the Local Government (Successor Parishes) (No. 2) Order, but does my right hon. Friend agree that next week's business is not particularly appropriate to the circumstances when there is widespread and well-founded apprehension about the economic situation? If the National Economic Development Council is to have a special meeting before Christmas, can we arrange to have an economic debate in the House of Commons?

Mr. Prior: Yes, Sir. I think it will be necessary to have a debate on a number of issues, relating to energy and oil and to the economic situation, within the period between now and the Christmas Recess. My hon. Friend has made a perfectly fair point. But even in times such as my hon. Friend has described—[HON. MEMBERS : "Crisis."]—and in times of an oil crisis such as we have now, the task of the Government and the process of supply and legislation have to go on. It is right that it should go on, but we should also take note and take the necessary action to ensure that the House of Commons can debate these matters.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: May I return to the question raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr)? Tonight there are three orders on the Order Paper, on the question of proscription of people in Northern Ireland, on large sums of money totalling up to £600 million of expenditure in Northern Ireland, and on fundamental reform of local government in Northern Ireland. Those are likely to take four and a half hours, yet from 10.45 p.m. there will be no refreshment available

in the Palace of Westminster for the relatively small number who will remain.

An Hon. Member: Send out for fish and chips.

Mr. Rees: In the face of an expenditure of £600 million, is it not possible to tell the Treasury that taxis should be provided for staff serving the handful of people who will be debating matters affecting Northern Ireland tonight?

Mr. Prior: It is not a question of taxis, as the hon. Gentleman knows. It is a question of trying to restrict the use of petrol. [HON. MEMBERS : "Oh."] I take this matter seriously, even if other hon. Members do not. I believe that these are very important matters. There are arrangements by which hon. Members can get hot drinks if they so desire. It is not unreasonable at this time that we should allow our domestic staff to go home at 10.45 p.m.

Mr. Ridley: I thank my right hon. Friend for saying that there will be a debate on the fuel situation and on the economic situation. May I press him to say that they will be separate debates, in relation to the very great importance' which is placed upon the Government's policy as a result of the oil and coal crises and as witnessed by the fall in stock market prices and the fall in confidence and in investment, which make a debate solely on the economic situation urgent and important?

Mr. Prior: I think that it would be quite impossible to separate the one from the other, and that we could have a debate which involves the oil, energy and economic situations.

Dr. Summerskill: As the majority of the country's ambulance services are now involved in some kind of industrial action, will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for an urgent statement or debate on this extremely serious situation?

Mr. Prior: Subject to your ruling, Mr. Speaker, I should have thought that some of the problems the hon. Lady raises could be dealt with on the Opposition motion on Tuesday.

Mr. Evelyn King: A few minutes ago my right hon. Friend kindly promised a debate on the Nugent Committee's report after January. For that I am grateful. May


I get this matter clear? May I assume that no decision will be announced by the Government, or at least none affecting Dorset, until the debate takes place?

Mr. Prior: I have made the position on that clear on a previous occasion. My understanding is that the Government wish to have a debate before any decisions are reached, but I should like to check on that and let my hon. Friend know.

Mr. Judd: Has the right hon. Gentleman had an opportunity to study Early Day Motion No. 88 on the Order Paper, now signed by more than 90 right hon. and hon. Members?

[That, in view of the detailed and far reaching negotiations now taking place within EEC circles in Brussels concerning Associate Status, Generalised Preferences, the European Development Fund and other related matters, this House believes that Her Majesty's Government should enter into no agreements about future policy in these spheres until there has been an opportunity fully to debate any proposals within this House.]

In view of the far-reaching implications of the current negotiations in Brussels concerning the relationship between the EEC and the third world, will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that there will be an opportunity for a full and probing debate in the House before any irrevocable decisions are taken?

Mr. Prior: My right hon. Friend dealt with this matter in his statement yesterday. The whole question of debates on Community affairs will have to be considered again in the light of the Select Committee's report. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the undertaking for which he has asked, that a debate will take place before these decisions are irrevocably reached, but I will look into that point and let him or the House know.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Further to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings), as we are having a debate next week on the landscaping of New Palace Yard, and because of the pressing situation and its possible recurrence in the future, before coming to that debate will my right hon. Friend consider providing in the landscaping for some petrol pumps there, so that at least

we would be regular customers somewhere?

Mr. Urwin: In view of the excessive heat which has been generated in the last few minutes about the curtailment of certain services and, indeed, the withdrawal of certain important services in the House because of the absolute necessity for staff to be able to leave while public transport is available, may I ask the Leader of the House to consider seriously the re-institution, for a period during the state of emergency, of morning sittings? If they were reinstituted, we could not only get people away earlier in the evening but also conserve valuable heat resources in the building.

Mr. Prior: That question raises a rather controversial matter which I think we ought to consider if the present emergency regarding fuel continues. I should like to consider that point.

Dame Irene Ward: While I thank my right hon. Friend for the help that he is trying to give, may I ask whether we shall get the necessary order on the Kielder Dam before Christmas? We do not want to be short of water as well as of everything else.

Mr. Prior: As my hon. Friend knows, I have been doing my best to help the House to have this order before Christmas. I am not in a position yet to give the House any further information.

Mr. Bidwell: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that this year the Christmas Recess, whenever it starts, must necessarily be exceedingly short, because the crisis is likely to be continuous and there will be a need, one assumes, for the Government to renew the emergency powers, which will necessitate the very early return of the House? A better reason still is that we have no right in these circumstances to absent ourselves from the House for several weeks.

Mr. Prior: I shall welcome the hon. Gentleman's support if we have to curtail the length of the Christmas Recess.

Mr. Spearing: The Lord President mentioned that he was not prepared to give time for a debate on the GSP preference of the EEC before irrevocable decisions are made. Does he not recall that yesterday his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy said that this


was a most important matter? Does not the right hon. Gentleman now agree that a debate is essential before these decisions are reached?

Mr. Prior: I did not say that I was not prepared to give time for a debate. I wanted to be certain of the last date by which these decisions had to be reached. Without that knowledge I am not able to give the undertaking, because I know how much time there is between now and, for example, 1st January. Therefore, it would be wrong of me to give the House an undertaking which I might not be able to fulfil. But if there is no decision to be reached as early as that, there may be time for a debate.

Mr. Benn: Reverting to the economic and industrial situation, will the right hon. Gentleman convey to his colleagues the feeling expressed on all sides of the House that it would be quite intolerable if the present situation was being discussed between the Government, the TUC and the CBI, involving a re-examination of alternative strategies for the Government, and this information was not made available to the House, and through the House, to the country, so that people can be brought into the Government's thinking? Will he please convey this feeling

very strongly so that the House is able to perform its proper function at a moment which everyone recognises is one of serious danger?

Mr. Prior: I shall take into very careful consideration the views that have been expressed by the right hon. Gentleman and by other hon. Members in all parts of the House. Naturally, it would be the wish of the Leader of the House that the House had a full opportunity for discussing these matters, which I and the Government recognise are of great importance to the country at present. I do not think that we would be able to go away for Christmas without having a debate on these matters.

Mr. Ashton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Leader of the House has announced the date on which the Christmas Recess will begin, but he did not announce when we would be returning. In view of the fact that the emergency powers expire next Friday and if they are renewed they would be due to expire again on the second Sunday in January, how can the House continue in this limbo situation without there being a proper timetable laid down?

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman has already dealt with that matter—which is not a point of order—in his reply.

IMMIGRATION AND RACE RELATIONS

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Humphrey Atkins.]

4.11 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Robert Carr): May I open the debate by saying how much I welcome the presence of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins). I am sure that the House also welcomes him back as the principal Opposition spokesman on home affairs. We are all sad to lose his predecessor, the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams), from this post.
I am glad to have the opportunity for a full debate on race relations and immigration. We have on the Table three important reports from the Select Committee dealing with some of the most serious problems in race relations. There is the report on housing, the report on police-immigrant relations and the report on education. No doubt many hon. Members will wish to concentrate mainly on one or more of these reports. The Government will welcome, and will take seriously into consideration, the views expressed about the reports. I want the debate to cover immigration as well as to discuss race relations because it is essential to set off discussion of race relations within this context. I say that because the Government believe strongly that the creation of public confidence in respect of the effective limitation of future immigration is an essential pre-condition for a constructive approach to the problems of race relations.
When I last spoke to the House on the subject, when we debated an aspect of illegal immigration at the end of June, I laid down four basic principles on which the Government founded their policy of race relations and immigration. I shall briefly recapitulate those principles.
The first principle was that in this country we should have no second-class citizens. Everyone born here, everyone peacefully, lawfully settled here, should be equal before the law and should be treated equally in the daily practices of everyday life.
The second principle was that further permanent immigration must be cut to a small and inescapable minimum, because we are an overcrowded country and because over the last couple of decades we have accepted a large number of new citizens as immigrants.
The third principle was that our small capacity to accept and absorb new permanent immigration must be reserved almost wholly for the two categories of people to whom we have special responsibility. The first category is close dependent relatives of those already settled here lawfully. That was a clear promise in our election manifesto in 1970. The second category of people for whom we must reserve a place within our small capacity is those who, as a result of our imperial past, possess citizenship of this country and no other. I am referring to people who are often described as United Kingdom passport holders.
The fourth of the basic principles I laid down in June was that we must do all in our power to halt illegal immigration.
I want to review progress in putting these four principles into action. I start with the second and third of the principles in the order in which I enumerated them, namely, action to reduce immigration to an inescapable minimum and action to reserve our small capacity for dependants of those lawfully settled here and United Kingdom passport holders. Our instrument for achieving action on these principles is the Immigration Act 1971. The Act leaves untouched the previously established right of heads of households lawfully settled here to have their close dependants join them and settle with them in this country. As I have reminded the House, my party specifically promised that in its election manifesto.
The Act also leaves untouched the right of United Kingdom passport holders to come here under the conditions established in 1968. Thus two priority classes were confirmed in the new legislation, but in almost every other way the 1971 Act has established an entirely new situation.
The Act came into full force in January of this year, so we have had nearly a year's experience of it in full operation. As a result, since January of this year no Commonwealth citizen,


other than a patrial, entering Britain for employment, any longer enjoys a right of permanent settlement either for himself or for his close dependants. Work permits issued for 12 months initially apply strictly to approved employment. A permit can be renewed after the first 12 months, and if it is extended for up to four years the holder has the right to apply for, but not automatically to receive, permanent settlement in this country. This is an absolutely basic change. I want to stress that it is a change in reality, not just a change in name.
Before January this year any Commonwealth citizen given one of the old entry vouchers for employment knew that, once admitted with the voucher, he had a legal right for himself and subsequently for his family to settle here permanently. That right no longer exists. I want to make that clear to every Commonwealth citizen who comes here with a work permit under the 1971 Act. Commonwealth citizens who come with these work permits must not assume that, if they are allowed to stay in approved employment for four years, they will then almost automatically be granted permanent settlement. I stress this because it is very important from the point of view of future good relations that the people who come with the permits do not come here with any false assumptions or false expectations, based on past practice, because the 1971 Act has fundamentally changed the situation.

Mr. Sydney Bidwell: Mr. Sydney Bidwell(Southall)rose—

Mr. Carr: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman on this specific point, but many hon. Members want to take part in the debate, and giving way to interruptions leads to an inordinate extension of a speech.

Mr. Bidwell: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I well understand his point. I hope to catch Mr. Speaker's eye later, but I wish now to raise the question of second-class citizenship and the right hon. Gentleman's desire to obviate it, which he says is enshrined in his four principles. Does not he concede that we are in an odd situation? A Commonwealth citizen here with a work permit is confined to a specific occupation, but has citizen's rights as a Commonwealth

person, in that he can vote and presumably can come to this House as an elected representative of the people.

Mr. Carr: I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman's implication is or what he wishes it to be. It is true, and we have never made any secret of it, that in terms of immigration for work and settlement here we are now treating Commonwealth citizens in the same way as aliens. We have always made that clear. But so far we have thought it right—I thought with the approval of the House, including the Opposition—still to distinguish Commonwealth citizens from aliens in many of the civil rights they enjoy while here. Those rights do not have to go with permanent settlement. As long as people come here under no misapprehension, we need not be bothered about any effects on race relations. The important thing is that they do not come here under any false impressions, with expectations based on past practice. That is why I wanted to say what I said.
The effect of the 1971 Act is already becoming clear. In the first nine months of this year 1,053 people arrived with the new twelve-month work permits. In the first nine months of 1970 a total of 3,124 people arrived with the old type of employment vouchers. Compared with three years ago, the numbers coming have been cut to only a third of their previous level. The much smaller numbers coming this year have, unlike their predecessors, no right of permament settlement for themselves or their families. This is, as we promised it would be, a dramatic reduction both in number and in future commitment.
I come to the dependants of heads of households lawfully settled here before 1st January this year, when the new Act came into being. Their rights are not diminished by the 1971 Act. We always promised that they would not be diminished by that Act. These dependants of heads of household settled here before the beginning of the year now constitute the major part of Commonwealth immigration. But their numbers are declining and will continue to decline, because since January this year new families are no longer acquiring any entitlement to settle here permanently. We no longer have new families adding themselves at the end of the queue of people with that entitlement to come.
Many people seem to fear that the pressure of dependants to come here is virtually limitless in both time and number, but that is not so, for the reason I have just given. No further dependants are being added to the end of the queue since the beginning of this year, so that that fear is not well-founded. I repeat that the number of dependants coming here is declining and will continue to decline.

Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: Is it not possible that immigrants might return to their countries of origin, establish families there, and then themselves return to this country, continuing in that way almost ad infinitum, bringing in dependants or having the right to bring them in? Is it not reasonable to say after a certain stage, "No more, because you have had five or ten years in which to bring in your family. We cannot grant that right indefinitely"?

Mr. Carr: My hon. Friend has a number of rather complex points all mixed up in one statement. I prefer not to answer them off the cuff because, without studying my hon. Friend's words, I am not sure what the implications are. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary can give a considered reply when he winds up the debate.
Among other things, the sort of concept I think my hon. Friend has in mind would be very much involved with a review of British nationality law upon which, as I have already announced, the Government have started. They are no doubt all among the important matters which will arise when we discuss and finally decide the future of our nationality law.
What is important is that we are not allowing new heads of household to come here to work with a right of permanent settlement here for themselves and their families, which has been overwhelmingly the major form of immigration hitherto. That is what is immediately needed to deal with the situation.

Mr. John Fraser: I know the right hon. Gentleman did not want to give the impression that he was intending to deal only with what is primarily coloured immigration from the Commonwealth. He has given us figures showing a reduction in Commonwealth

immigration from 3,124 in 1970 to 1,053 this year. Will he now give us the comparable figures for foreigners and EEC nationals and their dependants entering the United Kingdom?

Mr. Carr: My hon. Friend will do that, if the House wishes, but I do not think that it is germane to the argument about the concern in the House and outside. That is why I am talking about Commonwealth immigration. We could have another debate on another subject, but Commonwealth immigration is the matter which is of concern, and that is the comparison I am making.
I want to make it clear that the figures I am giving are not on a colour basis. A considerable proportion of the entry I have been talking about is from the white Commonwealth—as well as from the coloured Commonwealth. I am certainly making a division between the Commonwealth and the EEC and aliens. I am talking about the Commonwealth, but I am not making a division based on colour. The 1,053 who entered in the first nine months of the year with the new work permits were by no means all coloured workers.
Let us consider the figures for dependants and the fact that they have declined and will continue to decline. In 1967 the number of dependants admitted for settlement was 53,000. In 1972 it was 22,000, and this year, based on the figure for the first nine months, it is likely to be about 18,000. According to our forecasts, which have proved substantially accurate in the past, we expect a further drop, although probably not so steep, in 1974 and 1975.
The question of the future scale of entry of Commonwealth dependants rightly concerned the Select Committee on Immigration and Race Relations, which has recently reported on the education of immigrant children. This year's nine-month entry figures show that the Home Office officials were perhaps unduly cautious when giving evidence to the Select Committee in June, at a time when only the figures for the first three months of the year were available.
I recognise, however, in spite of the dropping figures over the first nine months, the continuing concern about the queue of dependants who may wish to


live here. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will visit India, Pakistan and Bangladesh early next year to assess the situation and assure himself that our procedures are working efficiently and that only genuine dependants in the very strict categories eligible are being issued with certificates. The pressure is great, but we believe that the efficiency of our control is sufficient to resist any attempt—there may well be a considerable attempt—to get in as bogus dependants, and that we can sift out the genuine from the bogus. But it is important that my hon. Friend should examine the situation personally and report back to me on it.
I come next to the question of our second priority category, United Kingdom passport holders. I made it clear to the House in my statement on 25th January this year that our acceptance of the sudden and large influx of refugees following their expulsion from Uganda had created an entirely new situation, and that a repetition of it would place unacceptable strains on our society. I said that while we confirmed our responsibility to our United Kingdom passport holders we must ensure that the future entry of these people would be in an orderly and controlled manner and on a scale of the same magnitude as in recent years. The global quota for entry vouchers for United Kingdom passport holders was fixed in May 1972 at a maximum of 3,500 per year. Since the Ugandan expulsion the rate of issue of vouchers has been substantially below that maximum and I confirm again that we intend to keep it within that maximum.
We have decided however that, fully consistent with this policy, it will be possible to increase the allocation of vouchers to Kenya. We have been in close touch with the Kenyan Government about this and the consultations have involved not only our representatives on the spot but also my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary personally. I am glad to say that the Kenyan Government have assured us that they understand Her Majesty's Government's policy for the admission of United Kingdom passport holders and will help us to operate it in an orderly way by means of the special voucher scheme. We very much welcome this understanding. We have likewise kept the Tanzanian

Government continuously informed about the objectives of our policy. As a result we are satisfied that the situation there can be dealt with satisfactorily within the policies of the two Governments. We are most appreciative also of the attitude of the Tanzanian Government.
I shall now sum up the progress we have been making in progressively reducing the total number of immigrants admitted for settlement.

Sir David Renton: Will my right hon. Friend clarify and elaborate what he said about the effect of these new arrangements for Kenya and Tanzania? Will my right hon. Friend say whether the total number of passport holders who are heads of families and dependants will come within the maximum of 3,500 people a year as laid down in May 1972, or will that maximum in the case of Kenya, Tanzania or both be exceeded and if so why?

Mr. Carr: I am glad to have the opportunity to make the point absolutely clear because it is important that there should be no misunderstanding. The figure of 3,500 was fixed in May 1972 and refers to the number of vouchers which may be issued in a year to United Kingdom passport holders who are heads of families. It applies to all countries in which there are United Kingdom passport holders. It is a global total and does not apply to any one particular country.
We have always refused to publish any specific allocation within the total to any particular country because we wanted to maintain—and I think rightly—the flexibility to use up to that maximum but not beyond it in order to meet the needs of our passport holders as they varied from one country to another. We therefore have this flexibility within the total and we shall not exceed it, but within that total, and without exceeding it, although the amount has not been fixed, we have agreed fairly regular amounts with different Governments and we keep in touch with them. We are able while keeping within the total of 3,500 vouchers to increase for Kenya what has been its regular amount in recent years.
I want to emphasise however that the number of vouchers will not exceed for all United Kingdom passport holders in


all countries that 3,500 global total which was fixed in 1972.

Sir D. Renton: And they are heads of families?

Mr. Carr: They are heads of families as they always have been. The family size varies but we have found by experience in order to arrive at the total number of people involved that the figure must be multiplied by between three and four—and it varies from year to year because we are talking in averages—and that is exactly as in the past. Not only the number of voucher holders but the total number of people coming will therefore be within the scale which has existed since the quota of 3,500 vouchers was fixed.
I come now to sum up the progress we have been making in progressively reducing the total number of immigrants admitted for settlement. Here I am adding together all the various categories. The latest detailed quarterly figures have just been published and they show a steep decline. In the first nine months of this year the total was about 20,000. In the first nine months of 1970 it was about 27,000. There has therefore been a reduction of new admissions of some 25 per cent. on 1970.
What is perhaps more interesting to many hon. Members is that it shows a reduction of no less than 30 per cent. on last year's figure, and it is the Government's firm judgment and intention that this decline shall continue year by year. In saying that I wish to stress again that I am referring to the total which includes all those categories including the United Kingdom passport holders. It is our policy to see that this overall total, which has been declining, continues to decline because that is both possible and essential to achieve.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Will my right hon. Friend make a corresponding comparison for net immigration, that is "ins" minus "outs"?

Mr. Carr: We have never believed that taken on an annual basis the net inward and outward flows are a particularly good guide—

Sir D. Renton: It is the only final test.

Mr. Carr: Taken on an annual basis I simply do not believe that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) is right. Flows these days are so large, both in and out, because of the huge number of visitors entering and leaving that the recording system, though it is utterly accurate for total numbers, cannot identify within those total numbers those coming in and those leaving for the purposes of providing any foundation on which to base a judgment of those who will stay. The inward and outward flows over a period of years may be a guide but the fluctuations from year to year and from one part of a year to another are very great.
In the year ended September 1972 the net inflow was of the order of only about 4,000—and I am speaking from memory—which, for some reason I cannot explain, was very much lower than the same 12-month period for many previous years. Here again my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will be able to give more detailed figures if they are required, but the 12 months from September 1972 to September 1973 showed a considerably higher figure, but not greater than had been normal in most recent years. Frankly, I cannot explain why the 1971–72 year was so exceptionally low. When people look at the increase from 1972–73 compared with 1971–72, I ask them to examine the other years and they will see that it is the year from September 1971 to September 1972 which appears to be the exception rather than the latest year.

Mr. John Wilkinson: Would my right hon. Friend agree that it was, in fact, at the time of the Indo-Pakistan war and that it was this which had a dramatic effect on immigration from the sub-continent?

Mr. Carr: My hon. Friend could be right, but we have no evidence on which to base our opinion. The inflow and outflow figures are not, on a short-term basis, an accurate guide to how many people we may expect to be seeking to come to the United Kingdom, let alone succeeding, to settle here or otherwise.
I wish to turn to another category of people who are given the right to settle here. It is a category which has been causing some people much concern. So far I have been speaking about people


who are admitted for settlement in the first place. I deal now with people who, when they first came here, were admitted only temporarily on conditions, but who have subsequently had those conditions of stay removed and who, therefore, acquired the right to stay here.
Since the beginning of this year, the numbers of people in this category are being published regularly, quarter by quarter, along with all the other immigration statistics. The lists are displayed regularly for everybody to see and watch. The figures have been available before on request but have not been published regularly quarter by quarter until this year. For the last three years, the number in this category has been on a plateau of about 8,000 to 9,000 per year, considerably higher than a few years ago.
The concept of admitting persons temporarily with conditions of stay attached was introduced in 1965 or thereabouts, and it was only after five years that the majority of those people, under the old principle applying to Commonwealth citizens, acquired permanent rights to settle. In other words, it was only five years from when we first started imposing conditions that this category began to be a real one. For the last three years, it seems to have settled down at a plateau of about 8,000 to 9,000 per year. That is in addition to the figures for settlement of entry which I have referred to hitherto.
I have been studying the figures critically because I am determined that the removal of conditions on temporary visitors must not become a backdoor way of evading our immigration control. It is clear that in many of these cases there are obvious legitimate and understandable reasons for removing the restrictions on stay. Thus, nearly half the removals are accounted for by people who, after coming here, have established patriality or discovered that they had a grandparent born in Britain and proved it, or by women who married men already lawfully resident here and who automatically acquired the residential status of their husbands.
Nearly half the cases fall into this obvious category. I have, however, been looking particularly critically at one of the largest single elements in this category—students. I have found that between

a quarter and a third of all those who have their conditions of stay removed come here in the first place as students.
We have always had a liberal tradition in Britain of welcoming students from overseas and so, in any year, we probably have between 75,000 and 100,000 overseas students in this country. I am sure that this is a tradition which we want to continue because it creates and cements long-term links with this country, which are of value to us. It also provides valuable technical assistance to many developing countries, particularly those in the Commonwealth.
The overwhelming majority of students come here to take their courses seriously, and, when they have done so, go back to their home countries with valuable qualifications. That is true of the overwhelming majority, but there is some evidence that a small minority spin out their courses by changing from one course to another, more with the intention of staying in this country than of seriously obtaining good qualifications of a specific nature to assist their careers in their home country. This is not fait either to their fellow overseas students or, indeed, to the students born in Britain. I intend to look closely at a number of aspects of our control over the stay of students.
For example, among the questions that I intend to ask myself is whether we should place some control on the total length of time that a student may spend here on studies in the ordinary way. I appreciate that in doing this one must take account of the fact that some courses of study and training, such as medical courses, in their nature take a long time. A number of other points will also need to be considered.
Should we so freely allow students from overseas to continue to study here by switching from one type of course to another, where two or more types of courses cannot conceivably form part of a recognised programme of studies for a qualification in one discipline or in related disciplines?
Next, we should ask whether we should not be more demanding in the minimum number of weekly hours of study which qualify as a genuine course for student status. That point was raised by the Select Committee in its education report.


We should ask ourselves also whether we should obtain, as a matter of routine control, more regular and frequent reports from the institutions where students are working to make sure that admitted students are attending the courses for which they have been admitted, and without which they would not have been admitted.
In looking at these points and deciding how to tighten our control, I should stress that I shall not in any way change our liberal welcome for the great majority of those overseas students who are taking their courses at least as seriously as any people born in this country. What I am talking about is the small minority, and it would be wrong from every point of view to allow that group to snowball into a definite abuse of our immigration control.
I come to what I stated as the fourth of our basic principles, namely, that we should do all in our power to halt illegal immigration. The 1971 Act has given important new powers in this area. It has created a new offence of assisting illegal entry and it has created a new power to confiscate ships, aircraft and other vehicles which are proved to have been involved in carrying this trade of illegal entry. These new powers will be increasingly valuable. We can make use of those powers effectively only by strengthening the effort put into detecting and controlling illegal immigration.
The immigration service has now established its own intelligence unit, which is building up an ever-increasing index of people and organisations, as well as ships and aircraft known to be involved in this illegal trade. The police have also established their own central intelligence unit dealing with illegal immigration.
Members of the immigration service of the Home Office are about to begin visits to entry certificate offices overseas to tie-up the two ends of the operation. Immigration officers here are trying to stop illegal immigrants coming in and the entry certificate officers in overseas posts are dealing with entry requests. It is important that there should be closer links between them than in the past.
Arrangements for co-operation between police and other Government services in dealing with all these matters are also being strengthened, and the new arrangements will be set out in letters which my Department will shortly be sending to the chief constables of the forces principally concerned.
In addition to that, the immigration service of this country is building up co-operation with its counterparts in some seaports and airports on the continent. The smuggling of immigrants is often also linked to other criminal activity, and therefore liaison between our police forces and police forces on the other side of the Channel is also being strengthened. Finally, when my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State is making his visit to the Indian subcontinent, he will also go into, with all the people involved, including the Governments of the countries concerned, what, if any, action can be taken at that end to try to attack this evil trade, this modern version of the slave trade, in illegal immigration.
I sum up now on the immigration aspect. I think I can claim that in 3½ years a very substantial reduction has been made in admissions for settlement, and I can say that we are determined that this reduction shall continue. I can also claim that there are greatly intensified efforts to prevent abuse of our tighter controls, whether by illegal immigration or by other devices.
Thus, I believe that we have made a great deal of progress towards reducing immigration to a small inescapable minimum, and therefore towards creating what we believe to be the essential conditions precedent for a strong positive attack on the problems of race relations and therefore towards the fulfilment of living up to our other basic principle, the first that I mentioned—that we must not allow second-class citizenship to develop in this country.
What is the scale of this problem? To the best of our knowledge, about 1,500,000 coloured residents were in this country in 1971. If that order of magnitude were evenly distributed over the whole country, the problem would not be very difficult to deal with. But for all sorts of reasons, economic and social, a large proportion of that 1,500,000 or thereabouts are concentrated in a relatively few places in a relatively few of


our big cities. For example, we have about half of the West Indian-based coloured population living in the Greater London area.
This is what creates the difficulty, and I do not want to underestimate it in any way. I do not believe that it can anyhow at the moment be precisely quantified, but it is substantial and it is certainly not going to melt away. But we do have to face it ; we cannot wish it away. Whatever we do, we must face the fact that the great majority of these coloured residents are here to stay.
The harmony of our society in the future depends to a very great extent on the white majority learning to live and work with them and on helping them—our coloured residents—to live and work with us on equal terms. This will require sustained positive policies and actions in many directions. Basic to everything else, I believe, are housing and education, and these are the subjects of two of the reports of the Select Committee to which the Government will soon be making their reply and on which I am anxious to hear the views of hon. Members.
Perhaps next in importance comes employment and this, I am glad to see, the Select Committee will be studying this Session. I look forward to its report on this matter also. But in advance of this, the Government have been taking some recent initiatives which are important. In particular, it is important that the Government should set an example as employers and so, in the last few weeks, a circular has been sent out by the Civil Service Department to all Government Departments containing advice about the adoption of a positive attitude in Government Departments to making equality of opportunity in employment in the Civil Service a reality, and I shall follow this up in order to watch progress as closely and as realistically as I can.
The Department of Employment, which has already been developing the work of its advisory services in this area, will now be urging private employers with increasing intensity to follow the example laid down in the Government circular and which Government Departments will be following.
Police-immigrant relations is another important aspect. Here, the Government

have already replied to the Select Committee's report and are seeking to get the majority of its recommendations implemented by the people involved. But I realise, of course, that the main problem falls on local communities and local authorities in a relatively few areas. Much has already been done to help them meet these needs.
Thus, under Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966, grants of nearly £8 million are being provided in one year to meet 75 per cent. of the cost of the extra staff employed by these local authorities to deal with the problems of high immigrant concentration. Then there is the urban programme, which, of course, although not specifically designed for race relations, does nevertheless work in a way which means that some 60 per cent. of the urban programme money goes to authorities with high concentrations of coloured residents.
The expenditure of the urban programme is running at about £14 million throughout Great Britain this year, and a further increase is on the way. The White Paper on Public Expenditure, which will be published shortly, will show an increase in the urban programme funds of some £2 million a year above last year's forecasts.
In addition, I am glad to be able to announce today that the urban programme will be further increased by about £6 million spread over the next three years. This further increase is being found from the funds which would have been made available to the aid programme and corresponds to the amount which we would probably have provided as capital aid for Uganda if circumstances there had been different.
It is my intention that this extra £6 million should be used exclusively to help local authority areas where the social services are particularly under strain because of the high concentration of immigrants, and in distributing this additional help I shall bear in mind that the burden of absorbing Asians from East Africa falls with special severity on a very limited number of areas.
In addition, I think that the Prime Minister's action in appointing me as coordinating Minister for all the urban programmes and the establishment that goes with it of the Urban Deprivation


Unit, which I mentioned during the debate on the Loyal Address, again points to the increasing importance which the Government give to the problem of life in parts of our cities. This is, of course, not essentially a racial problem in itself but in practice it does determine the environment in which race relation problems have to be tackled in most of the big concentrations of coloured populations.
Of course, there is a lot to be done, but I hope that we shall not forget that there is a lot to be proud of about race relations in this country. Let us always praise where we can both what is done by the white population and what is done by the leaders of the coloured community, because the basic fact we have to get hold of and recognise in all our actions and activities is that there is this population of coloured people, who have come from far parts of the world, who are with us and who are here to stay, and that more than one-third of them were actually born here as British children.
The success we have in reacting to this fact and the problems it presents will to a large extent determine the future harmony of the whole of our society. That is why the Government are committed to reducing future immigration to the inescapable minimum. That we believe is the condition precedent for the right atmosphere to bring about a constructive approach in our determination to live up to our first principle that there shall be no second-class citizens.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I find myself coming back after a relatively brief interlude of, I think, 20 months to the feel of a Dispatch Box in front of me and to the less tangible return of a departmental subject from which I have been away for a rather longer interval—one of almost exactly six years. I am grateful to the Home Secretary for his kind words of welcome and am glad that my first appearance in this new Shadow rôle should be in a debate on a subject as important, even if also as delicate and in some ways intractable, as that which we are discussing today.
Certainly it was one of the aspects of my work at the Home Office which I and those who were with me between 1965 and 1967 found most worth while. We

were then able to do something to create an atmosphere of hope. I was particularly happy, before leaving, to be able to announce the shape of the 1968 Race Relations Act, which was certainly not perfect but which I believe marked a substantial step forward. There was far from universal approval for it when my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) carried it through.
I was glad to see that the Home Secretary made an honourable and frank statement of the evolution of his party's view when he addressed the conference of the Race Relations Board at Nottingham in September and said :
Whatever differences of view there may have been in 1968 I want to put it clearly on record with you that the Government fully endorses the principles of the Race Relations Act under which your Board is established.
I was a little less happy to see that in that same speech he gave a rather discouraging, although not final, reply to some proposals of the board for amending legislation arising out of its experience.
I began at the end of 1965 with much weaker legislation than we have now and with a board which was only in embryo. The appointments had not been made, although they had been discussed. It was also a much smaller board. On the whole, I found it desirable to let the board build up the case for the changes it wanted and then, subject obviously to the discretion of the Government and the House, to act broadly on its recommendations. I believe that the Home Secretary, while giving himself adequate time for reflection, might be wise to follow the same course.
The board has sense on its side in what it is proposing. These are not extreme proposals. One of them is to rid it of a rather nonsensical obligation which it has to investigate complaints which it would not regard as being worth investigating. The recommendations should be acted upon, subject only to a point to which I shall come a little tentatively later, that any legislation should perhaps be set in a broader context of anti-discrimination legislation generally.
In contrast with the Home Secretary, I want to devote the greater part of my speech to race relations rather than immigration, but I want to say something


about immigration first. The right hon. Gentleman proudly announced his reduced figures for the first nine months. I do not dispute that reasonably low figures make the problem easier to handle. We welcome what the right hon. Gentleman said about the Kenyan and Tanzanian position. It is a small but welcome and sensible change. I gather from what he said that it will be welcome to the Kenyan Government, who hope to stabilise the position. Today's statement was wiser than that which the right hon. Gentleman made in January. I happened then to be in Nairobi, and there was a grave danger that the statement made here for home consumption might have precipitated the circumstances which the right hon. Gentleman and all of us were anxious to avoid.
We must have limited and low figures, but in some cases the price to be paid for the limited reductions to which the right hon. Gentleman was pointing can be too high. I want to refer to three matters. First, there are still split families among Ugandan Asians. I understand that the figure is at least 250. The Uganda Asian Resettlement Board, as I understand it, is soon to be wound up, but there are problems remaining. How does the Home Secretary envisage dealing with this problem of split families, which is quite unacceptable? How quickly can it be dealt with? The second matter was brought out during Question Time today and has to do with the fact that British females have no right to bring in husbands to join them in the same way as do British husbands. I know that there is a tu quoque answer to this, and that we can exchange these opinions across the Floor of the House a good deal. We march on in the struggle for equal rights for the sexes and it is difficult to see on what basis of sex equality this absolute lack of any right at all can in present circumstances be justified.

Mr. Carr: May I get rid of the tu quoque idea? I approved of the action taken by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) when he was Home Secretary. I did so regretfully, because although there was growing evidence that men were getting round our immigration controls and coming here to marry, women were not doing so. If women were as irresponsible as

men in this way we would get back to sex equality.

Mr. Jenkins: I am not disputing that there is a problem, although it was concerned mainly with fiancés rather than husbands. The marriage contract is a little more permanent, at any rate, than the undertaking that a marriage might take place in certain circumstances at some stage in the future. I am not inviting the Home Secretary to open what could be a wide door to abuse, but there is a problem which must be considered seriously unless we are prepared indefinitely to proceed on a direct basis of sex discrimination. That would be difficult to do. Even within the rule which gives husbands greater rights than wives, some intolerable delays are taking place.
A case was raised by a constituent about which I wrote to the Home Secretary a short time ago. He has not had time to deal with it. I make no complaint of that, although it was a few weeks ago that I wrote. I know that the Home Office grinds a little slowly. An extremely well-established Pakistani, a British subject holding a British passport, with a good job at Birmingham University, clearly here for permanent settlement, with a permanent job, had a wife whom he wished to bring in. He came to see me and said that his wife had been to see the high commissioner in Islamabad in June. He gave me a letter, which appeared to say that she was to come back in September. I looked at the letter and said, "I quite see that a delay from June to September is not desirable and that you are getting a little impatient, but, after all, September has gone by and three months, while long, is perhaps tolerable." He said, "With respect you have misread the letter. It does not say that she is to come back in September 1973 ; it says that she is to come back in September 1974".
That delay of 15 months between the first and second interview, in a case of the reunion of husband and wife is unacceptable. There is a suspicion that this is being done not because of an intolerable administrative burden ; it is being welcomed in that it produces satisfactory statistics by reducing the numbers. To the extent that that is so, the Home Secretary should not congratulate himself upon statistics that are produced by these inhumane methods which cannot fail to


interfere with family life and cannot be conducive to good relations. When the Under-Secretary of State goes on his tour in the New Year, he should, as he must, deal with questions of possible abuse and also try to ensure that there is more speed and courtesy in treatment by the immigration departments of the high commissions in dealing with genuine cases of this sort.
I agree with the Home Secretary's unequivocal acceptance that we have a coloured population of about 1½ million ; that successive Governments, and Ministers in successive Governments, are responsible in varying degree for their being here—not least the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) when he was Minister of Health ; that, except at the margin, they are here to stay ; that it is moonshine and misleading to pretend otherwise ; and that on every ground of morality and expediency they must not be treated as second-class citizens.
The Home Secretary, however, is some-times stronger on liberal sentiments than he is on positive action. I am not quite sure that he appreciates—and this emerges a little from the balance of his speech between immigration and race relations—the strenuous and unremitting nature of the struggle there must be if the avoidance of second-class status is to be a reality and not just a pious aspiration.
I should like, without, I hope, wearying the House, to offer some reflections on how the problem looks to me, coming back after six years, compared with how it looked when I left it in the autumn of 1967, and to try to see, in a relatively non-controversial way, where progress has been better than might have been expected and where, on the other hand, the problem has proved less tractable.
In attempting such a survey I have been much aided in the last week or so by the successive reports and evidence collected by the Select Committee. We all owe a considerable debt of gratitude to the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Bottomley) and other members of the Select Committee which produced a great deal of valuable work. We in the House have more reason for gratitude to the Select Committee than has the Select

Committee to the Government for the response it has received.
What, for instance, has happened to the response of the Department of the Environment to the housing report, which is nearly two and a half years old? The response on police-immigrant relations has been forthcoming, after a delay of just over a year. How much time is likely to elapse before a response is received from the Department of Education and Science to the latest report on education? I see that the Secretary of State is here. I shall willingly give way to her if she wishes to answer that question now.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): By Easter.

Mr. Jenkins: I am glad to hear that. It will set a standard which I hope the Secretary of State for the Environment and other Departments will note. I forget whether Easter is early or late this year, but it is a great deal nearer to us than the two and a half years for which we have awaited the response of the Department of the Environment. But paper response, important though it is, is still well short of implementation.
I return to the attempt at a survey of the development of the position over six years. The pattern is a jagged one. Some things are better than one might have expected, others less good. The employment opportunities, particularly for girls in London, have proved better than looked likely. In the PEP report, which was a basic document in those early days, it was not thought likely that by this relatively early date girls would be so well established in secretarial jobs, in department stores and in food shops as they are. There has been progress and acceptance here to an encouraging extent.
On the other hand, the position of young males is much less good, particularly among those of West Indian origin. The 1971 census showed that there was 16·2 per cent. unemployment amongst boys born in the West Indies compared with a national average among boys of 8 per cent. That was in a period of higher unemployment than now. But the discrepancy was worse than it looked, because those born in the West Indies were concentrated to an unnatural extent in areas of high employment, whereas the indigenous population was spread over


the whole country including the areas of heavy unemployment. This group of boys who have just left school and should be in their first or early jobs but are not is clearly a sensitive group from the point of view of future attitudes and race relations. Indeed, there is a depressing indication of a hardening of exclusive, hostile attitudes amongst precisely this group and its immediate predecessors.

Mr. Christopher Woodhouse: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the statistics which he has been quoting give an indication of the level of employment amongst boys of West Indian origin born in this country?

Mr. Jenkins: I think that it is less, but not significantly less. The figures which I have relate to those born in the West Indies. There might be a slight improvement when the figures which I was relating—namely for those born outside the country and the figures for those born in Britain—are taken together. I have no doubt that the same pattern would be reflected, but possibly to a lesser degree, if the category which the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Wood-house) has mentioned were taken instead of the category used in the figures which I have given.
We have not exactly moved to a less equal performance in education, but we have become more conscious of inequality. That is partly because of the work of the Select Committee. There is not just a culture conflict for those born outside the country. It persists amongst those born in the country as part of an interlocking pattern of deprivation and poor opportunity. To some extent it is bound up with the white problem in the same areas. In that context there is also deprivation and poor opportunity. It is not specifically a colour problem. Where there is difficulty and a culture conflict, and where other adjustments have to be made, the problem is accentuated to that extent. It is not unique to the minority groups but on the whole it is worse for them.
There are some brighter spots. The Asians do very nearly as well as the average in London although, for some reason, a little less so outside London. The West Indians generally have more difficulty. Language can be crucial. That

may sound paradoxical in view of what I have just said. The West Indians are not entirely free from language difficulties. Not nearly enough has been done in that direction. I am glad that the Secretary of State for Education and Science is listening to the debate. To take one example, there are a number of people among the Ugandan refugees who came here last year who were teachers in Uganda and who are not teaching in this country. They are, on the whole, doing jobs which are less useful and perhaps less worthy. Of course, I do not like to say that any job is less worthy than another, but the fact is that they are doing jobs which are less closely related to their talents than those which they were doing before they left Uganda.
Given the great shortage of teachers in many parts of Britain and given the language problem amongst minority groups, it seems to have been a great waste of opportunity not to have put those from Uganda with teaching experience on a short crash course. Very little effort would have been necessary to make them fully qualified to teach in this country and to enable them to make a substantial contribution to the problem.
The Pathway Unit has been operating in Southall in the London Borough of Ealing for three years. It is a limited project which has cost only £25,000. Nothing has grown from the project during the past three years. At the same time, as is undoubtedly the case, the cost of employing people in industry without adequate knowledge of English has greatly increased. There are other countries which have faced the same problem. For instance. Sweden has been spending far more money—I accept that the spending of money is not the object—and employing far more resources in dealing with the problem of people working in the country who do not know the country's natural language. That underlines the importance not only of an early response but an adequate response from the Department of Education and Science to the Select Committee's report.

Mr. Tom Ellis: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Russell Report on adult education refers specifically to the problem which he has been discussing? Will my right hon. Friend ask the Secretary of State for Education and


Science if she will turn her attention to it?

Mr. Jenkins: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis) for raising that important and informative matter. I shall be glad to let the point ride off me and on to the right hon. Lady. I hope that she will pay attention to it.
I now turn to the important matter of police relations with minority groups. The background should be hopeful. It is often forgotten that amongst the coloured or minority groups the crime rates are below the average for the host community. The crime rates for the Asians are about half the rates of the host community. I think that we would all express the view, "Long may that continue". It should be the foundation for good police-minority group relations. To the extent that it is, it greatly increases the chances of such relations continuing. To the extent that it is not, it greatly reduces those chances.
The position of police-immigrant relations is patchy. In some ways it has improved. We have more coloured policemen. We now have about 70 coloured officers. That is a small number. It is less than one in a thousand. It is less than one-tenth of 1 per cent. That bears no relation to the fact that approximately 3 per cent. of the population is coloured. However, there has been progress since 1966 when, I think, the first coloured police officer and certainly the first in the Metropolitan Police, was appointed.
At a noisy meeting at the Central Hall, Westminster, on an occasion which I believe is annual and which may be familiar to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the police appear out of uniform and, to some extent, free from inhibition. On such an occasion, in October 1966, my words to them, couched, as always, in moderate terms, when describing the desirability of having some coloured policemen in their ranks were greeted with a noise which I did not take to be the sound of enthusiasm. Such an event would be impossible today. That is substantial progress. None the less, prejudice still exists amongst the police as amongst every category of group and body within the country.
It is not surprising or directly blameworthy that prejudice exists amongst the

police as amongst other groups. However, it is more dangerous amongst the police because it endangers future relationships. Considerable efforts are being made. They are being made by the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis and by a number of other high-ranking officers. For example, the Chief Constable of Birmingham has done a great deal. A great deal can be done by determined effort. It can be done by lower-ranking police officers.
A great change has occurred, for example, in Lewisham in the course of the past year. That has been achieved as a result of a determined effort to deal with a situation which was not very good and which has become a great deal better as a result of that effort. There could be dramatic results from facing the problem and making a vigorous effort. The Home Secretary has a particular responsibility. I hope he will quickly press on with a complaints procedure containing an independent element.
One other matter I want to raise takes on a somewhat more critical note than I have adopted hitherto in my remarks. I refer to the passport raids that took place in London on two days in October. I believe that those raids were most disturbing and created uncertainty and resentment. I believe that they are also contrary to assurances given by the Home Secretary that the 1971 Act would not be implemented in a way that would lead to harassment.
These raids were co-ordinated police operations. I understand that in the first raid about 15 police officers and one immigration officer were involved. They arrived early in the morning and cordoned off a block of buildings near Tottenham Court Road. They conducted a house-to-house search, asked for passports, and those who could not immediately produce them were taken off in vans to Leman Street Police Station—a police station in a different part of London—and they were detained there for several hours. A few illegal immigrants were caught—nobody objects to that—but they were a small proportion of those detained and a tiny proportion of those who were subjected to these mass raids. It was a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I do not believe that this fishnet technique—a technique involving pulling in a number of people


and throwing most of them out again without any apology and causing grave inconvenience—is a process which will lead to good relations with a peculiarly law-abiding, but necessarily somewhat nervous, section of the community.

Mr. Bidwell: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the retrospective effect of the 1971 Act, to which the Labour Party were resolutely opposed, inevitably imposed this new burden on the police?

Mr. Jenkins: I remember making this point when I wound up for the Opposition on the Second Reading of the 1971 Act. The incident I have illustrated proves that that point still has some force. I believe that, even with the Act on the statute book, it should still be possible to operate it in a way which would avoid a repetition of this incident. I very much hope and believe that that is the Home Secretary's intention.
I read his speech made in Nottingham in September with a great deal of interest and perhaps I may quote from it again. He said :
The point I want to stress today is that we in this country have a strong tradition of personal liberty, and once a person is in the community we do not expect him to carry an identity card or be subjected to inquiries and control at every end and turn.
It seems to me that that principle includes the fact that as a result of a mass raid people should not be carted off to a distant police station and kept there for a period of time because they have not been able immediately to put their hands on a passport.
There is one other very disturbing feature of this raid and a subsequent raid on 25th October. Who authorised this raid and at what level was it authorised? I know that it was not the Home Secretary, and I believe that he has said so. It was not the Commissioner of Police, nor apparently was it even the local Commander of Police, who was unaware that these raids had taken place until after they had happened. If this technique of mass raids of this sort, amounting almost to a dawn raid and involving the cordoning off of an area, is ever again used—about which I am very doubtful—I am certain that it should be authorised at

least by the Commissioner, if not by the Home Secretary himself.
We should have an assurance tonight from the Under-Secretary of State that the level of decision making on a point of this sort will be raised substantially, and that there will be no repetition of this casual entry operation, merely on information being laid, without any senior person either in the police or in the Home Office being consulted and asked for authority in what can be a dangerous procedure. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State, after consultation with his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, will apply himself to this when he replies tonight.
There are other factors which must be considered at the present time when most people want to see the British birth rate stable or falling. It is encouraging that there are indications that the same thing is happening to a very large part of the immigrant population. There are substantial indications that the birth rate among West Indians has fallen to a greater extent and more quickly than might have been expected. The crude figures show that the number is down to two-thirds of the figure in 1970.
The broad conclusion seems to be mixed. Small towns have found ways of dealing with the problem. I am referring to small towns where the problem exists and is not merely academic—such towns as High Wycombe, Slough, Rochdale and Rugby. Small towns paint a rather more encouraging picture than do some of the large conurbations, but since three of four of the people concerned live in the large conurbations it is no good pretending that we have dealt with the problem just because we have coped on a small-town basis.
Opinion on this subject in this country has stood up moderately well, despite sporadic attempts from a number of people, some with powerful voices, to stir up suspicion without providing constructive solutions. While there may have been some cases of hardening opinion, I think that this has not gone very far and action can be taken to prevent its going too far.
I come to a number of specific points. I refer first to the winding up of the Uganda Resettlement Board. Some 20 per cent. of Ugandans in this country are


still unemployed, although out of camps. What machinery have the Government to deal with the remnants of the problem?
My second point relates to the Pakistan Act. Many of the forms which need to be filled in by Pakistanis are complicated and inevitably lead to queries. Where queries have to be settled verbally, this has to be done by people going to an overcrowded office in Croydon from other parts of the country. I have raised this matter with the Home Secretary and I believe that he has applied himself to it. I hope that he can work out a solution which to some extent will provide for decentralisation of the procedure.
My third point relates to the position in regard to the Civil Service. A circular was issued from the Civil Service Department on 19th November, which on the whole is a good circular. It related to employment and to another very important consideration—promotion prospects. However, there was one gap in that circular. No machinery was set up to monitor and review the situation. Everybody who has been concerned with this subject in detail knows that monitoring is an essential follow-through procedure as outlined in the circular. I do not want to over-burden the Under-Secretary of State with too many specific points, but this point is one among other specific points on which I should like a reply. I hope that the monitoring procedure can be set up as quickly as possible.
In conclusion, therefore, I wish to make three broad points. First, even with the very small addition which the Home Secretary intends, I do not think that there is enough positive help and action. The Home Secretary is not complacent. I do not think that any of us could accuse him of that. But I doubt whether he is quite sufficiently activist. I doubt whether he has yet given indications of taking his urban co-ordinating rôle within his manifold other activities and making it sufficiently central to his attention. He will need to do this to make sure, for instance, that the Department of the Environment does not take another two years to reply. I hope that he will do something about that very quickly. I hope that there will be a general indication of a greater sense of central direction than we have had hitherto.
Going a little wider, I think that we are probably moving towards a position

in which we need a new structure for dealing with the whole problem. I am not sure that it is wise to go on indefinitely with the Race Relations Board and the Community Relations Commission as entirely separate entities. Their work is different, but it overlaps to a great extent. United States experience suggests that it is easy to have too many agencies dealing with these matters.
It is also the case that we are to have anti-sex discrimination proposals introduced. We have the Green Paper. The problem is sometimes the same as that which confronts us when we are dealing with minority groups. It is similar, it overlaps, but it is not identical. It appears from the Green Paper as though certain aspects will be dealt with here which are not satisfactorily dealt with in terms of race relations, and that certain aspects relating to sex discrimination will not be dealt with which will be dealt with in race matters. It might be considered whether we should not get a broader, more embracing and therefore more acceptable approach to the anti-discrimination problem if we moved towards a unified structure, not only for the different aspects of race work but for antidiscrimination work of all kinds.
I put that suggestion forward tentatively. What is important is to have effective machinery for both types of discrimination, and I do not claim to have reached a final judgment.
My third and last point is that there is no doubt that the problem which we are discussing is and remains a major challenge to our civilised values, to our traditions of tolerance and to the basic beliefs of us all—certainly all of us on this side of the House—in the equal rights of human beings. It is as fundamental to what we believe in or should believe in as any subject which can be debated in this House. It is also one of the factors which may be crucial to social peace in the future. It must not be neglected. It should not be seen through rose-tinted spectacles. But still less should it be viewed with either complacency or despair. Approached in that way, I believe that it is a problem which can be solved on a basis of which we can all be proud.

5.44 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Chapman: I am surprised as well as


diffident to be called immediately after the speech of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins). I dare to intervene briefly because I have the privilege of representing an area where, to say the least, there are very real problems concerned with immigration and race relations. I calculate that 25 per cent. of the population in my constituency is made up of coloured immigrants.
There is no doubt that the problems have been accentuated by emotion. There is nothing wrong with that. I claim to make a few observations today because I have been living in the middle of my constituency for 3½ years and because I welcome this as being the first real, wide-ranging debate on immigration that we have had since I was first elected to this House.
Naturally, I am anxious that the problems that we face should not be exaggerated. Nevertheless, they should be appreciated and fully understood, especially by those people who do not live in the areas which some of us represent.
At the outset I must say that, coming new to the problem, I cannot understand why it was not faced by the nation 20 or certainly 15 years ago and that it was only in a real sense dealt with halfheartedly 12 years ago. Especially irritating are the people who should have taken the more sensible decisions about controlling immigration those many years ago now blaming the people who have to deal with the problems very much on the ground as though it were our fault. I believe that that point should be made because it is of psychological importance to the people who live in such areas.
The problems of immigrants who are grouped together, so causing the very real social problems which exist today, are caused not because of the individuals they are but because of the simple and understandable fact that they want to live together collectively and because collectively the problems are increased, especially in relation to the social services in those areas. It is these problems which set up a chain reaction about which we all know.
I am not an expert in predicting population trends, but I ask hon. Members to understand why it is that I do not feel that anyone can be certain about the future. It is interesting to note that the person who probably should have been the expert, the then Registrar General, made a prediction in 1949 that the population of Britain in the year 2000 AD would be less than it already is today. We hopelessly under-estimated the population explosion which occurred in the 1950s and the early 1960s. I note that the number of live births in the United Kingdom reached a peak in 1964 and was approximately 1 million. It has dropped every year since then. In 1972 the number was about 831,000. I believe that the great danger today is that we may be hopelessly over-estimating the population increase.
Obviously, I cannot speak about future population trends in immigrant areas with any authority. But one factor about which I am sure is that, the more people think that the number of coloured immigrants in those areas will rise as a proportion of the population of these areas, the more likely it is to be true simply because other people will move to other areas. I have an interest, I hope from the highest motives, to see that that does not happen. I want to ensure that these demographic changes do not take place because I believe that to have balanced communities in our society is the best way of dealing with the problems that we have to tackle.
The right hon. Member for Stechford said that the overall problem nationally was one of 3 per cent. Obviously that varies in different parts of the country. However, the fact remains that, the more the proportion of coloured immigrants in an area goes up, the more difficult it will be to achieve any solution of the problems.
One of our problems in Birmingham arises as a result of rehousing our citizens generally to areas outside the city. Obviously few coloured immigrants qualify for rehousing. We hope that in future years the proportion who do will grow, and that may help the problem somewhat.
The issues as they relate to Hands-worth can be stated simply. We have


had quite enough talk about the problem. We are getting a little sick of the pseudo-psychologists telling us what is wrong about us. We want action and understanding. Action has been forthcoming from the Government since 1968. It would be churlish of me not to recognise the extra funds that have been made available in parts of my constituency by way of urban aid, housing and education.
I wish to mention one particular problem. I welcome particularly the extra resources that my right hon. Friend announced today, but it is important that all the resources should be better co-ordinated. They should be seen to be going to the immigrant areas. As a small practical suggestion, I submit that in dealing with the urban aid programme the Home Office may find on occasion that it is well to go over the heads of the local authorities and give specific amounts for projects, in response to direct applications, to organisations working on the ground rather than have them channelled through the local authorities.
We obviously need more understanding about the problem. We must accept the problem locally, although it is a national matter, but much more should be done by the Government to bring home to people all over the country the real size of the problem.
The Government have an economic responsibility. They must severely tighten up on immigration, for the obvious reason of numbers, and they must ruthlessly root out illegal immigration.
The right hon. Member for Stechford referred to the problem of coloured school leavers finding employment. I take the point that he made about the disparity between coloured school leavers and the national average. In Birmingham at the last census I think the figure was four to one. I suggest that not only the Government, but the CBI and the trade unions have some responsibility for this situation. It may be a question of education. I do not know. However, I suggest that everyone has a part to play in helping to solve that problem.
There is also a responsibility on immigrants in their communities. I hope that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite will not think that I am trying to make a party point. I am not talking about the merits or demerits of the Immigra

tion Act 1971. I know that some of the immigrant communities were led by their leaders into believing the most dreadful exaggerations about that legislation before it became an Act of Parliament. Therefore, there is a responsibility on immigrant leaders to see that the right information gets across to their members.
There is a responsibility on all who live in immigrant localities. I should like to touch on two points in Handsworth. I very much recommend the system that has been set up by the police in my part of the City of Birmingham. An advice bureau has been set up to advise the immigrant communities on their rights. That office has been set up in the middle of an immigrant area. The police have made very real efforts in this respect and deserve to be commended for what they have done in Handsworth. I believe that the situation has improved considerably over what it was five years ago. I pay tribute to the chief constable, the deputy chief constable and particularly the chief superintendent of "C" division, which covers this area, for the welcome measures they have taken.
I should like now to refer to the work that is being done by organisations on the ground. If any hon. Member feels pessimistic about the ability of this nation to solve this problem, I suggest that he should look at some of the work that is being undertaken by different organisations. I do not wish to underestimate this very real problem, but, as the right hon. Gentleman said, it presents a tremendous challenge. It is no exaggeration that the most difficult situation in the world today is that of different races living together in peace and harmony. If we can solve that problem in some of our immigrant communities in this country, it will be a shining example to the world.
I do not think that it is an exaggeration to express the wish that if we can identify the problem, deal with it with a little less emotion on occasions, and recognise, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, that we cannot wish or will it away, but accept that it is with us, we shall then begin to tackle the real problem of race relations and immigration in this country.

5.55 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Bidwell: It would be obvious to any observer that


this debate has revealed the closeness of the Government and the Opposition in their determination to work for and achieve harmonious race relations. The Home Secretary, at the end of his speech, deliberately underlined that point, and, as we would have expected, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) trebly underlined it. We might have expected that that would be his position in view of his fine record in dealing with the problem in earlier years. Therefore, he brings great experience to the debate.
In preparation for the debate I looked up the phrase for which my right hon. Friend became famous. It is interesting for the House to seek to determine whether what he said in 1966 is working out in the areas of heavy coloured immigration and its effect on the indigenous population. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Sydney Chapman) and I understand only too well, because of the nature of our constituencies, the travail in this problem. Both he and I have already had experience from our joint membership of the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration. I think that he and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Kinsey) would agree that an indivisible feature of the continuous study of immigration and race relations is that we are learning all the time. We are in a continuous process of learning and of change.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Stechford in 1966 defined integration not as a flattening process of assimilation—which means to make the same—but as equal opportunity accompanied by cultural diversity in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance. I believe that that, in a slow way, in a kind of upward moving escalator, is taking place in our society now.
When the members of the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration have travelled about, whether we have been in Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Manchester, Liverpool, London or Bradford, we have been struck by the similarity in purpose and spirit of the witnesses before us. Whether they are teachers, educationalists, industrialists or trade unionists, when they have to rationalise the situation before such a

committee, the feed-back is not noted for its diversity as much as for its similarity.
Of course there is diversity between employers and unions, between Church representatives and social workers and those who show the tinges of prejudice, but one generally finds an enormous spirit of good will. During our education inquiry, we were conscious of the wonderful spirit of the teaching profession who have to confront the enormous difficulties of teaching and handling children in a developing multi-racial society. That is the kind of society which is developing and which, whether some people like it or not, will remain with us.
The exercise can be limited to the question of numbers. There is public anxiety about the rate of entry from the new Commonwealth. But it would have been better if the Home Secretary had admitted earlier that there has been a deliberate curtailment of immigration from the new Commonwealth, as distinct from other immigration. When he set out his four principal points, with the repetitious phrase, "inescapable minimum", he was alluding expressly to new Commonwealth citizens. He could not possibly be talking about immigration from the EEC or from the white Commonwealth, New Zealand, Canada and Australia.
Under the rules, we have deliberately freed millions of people from any real or effective control and given them liberties enshrined in the treaties with the EEC, including the absolute right of abode removed to two generations. It is in this regard that I have seen the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) in a new light, remembering the amendment which he moved to the 1971 Bill, which the Labour Party and the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) supported and which was overcome by the Government by means of the rules.
Whatever view one may have of the entry certificate system, which existed before the present Government took office, I believe that the Government have been allowing the rules to overcome the statutory edict of the 1971 Act. If one asks, as with the chicken and the egg, which comes first, the rule or the statute, the answer must be the statute, because that is the will of Parliament as


expressed through a painstaking Committee stage and then again on the Floor of the House. In this case, there was no fight on the Floor of the House.
Enshrined in the 1971 Act to a large extent are the principles of family unity. That is the point at which the Opposition and the Government join hands. That is true of the Select Committee and of the bulk of hon. Members. We are anxious that a breadwinner in this country should have the right to be joined by his wife and family. That is why we drew up the rules and even raised the age limit for dependants from 16 to 18 to bring Commonwealth citizens into line with aliens and EEC nationals. The Home Office can also consider wider matters, such as older children and other people in the family circle who are not easily categorised ; they can be let in if a connection is firmly established.
In a particularly worrying case with which I have dealt recently, the Home Office has shown a lack of humanity and seems to have ignored the indelible principle in the 1971 Act of the right of a wife, in this case—not a fiancée, or a male seeking to join the female—to join her husband. It is an abominable case and sharply reminds one of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Stechford said about the terrible delay, especially at Islamabad.
I was going to ask Mr. Speaker for permission to raise this matter on the Adjournment, but I should like to take advantage of this opportunity to put the facts before the House. The House and the British people will, I think, be astounded at what the Minister ruled in this case, which highlights the agony of husband and wife separated in the way that my right hon. Friend has described.
A 19-year-old Pakistani bride, Nasreen Kausar, recently arrived at Heathrow Airport with an entry certificate, had been told to come in April 1974. But when she arrived at the airport, her marriage was already 12 months old. A short time earlier, a brother of the bride's husband was married, but, because he had stayed in Pakistan for some months and had been insistent at the Islamabad control office, his bride was allowed to accompany him to this country, as was

her right once the bona fides of the marriage had been established.
But when Nasreen Kausar arrived without her entry certificate, she was told that she could not be admitted although it was established beyond doubt that she was the wife of my constituent. She was held in detention for two weeks at the Harmondsworth detention area, and then the matter was brought to my attention. I pleaded with the Under-Secretary to allow her to come in, but he said—and I understood his thinking, though I did not accept it—that if he gave way he would be opening the way to a mass arrival of wives from Islamabad in similar circumstances.
I ask him, in all conscience, to weigh what this young women has been through. She was prescribed some pills by the airport doctor, and she took an overdose because she was distraught. She was then taken to Hillingdon hospital and then—partly because of my intervention, and partly because of Home Office compassion—she was allowed to join her husband for nine days. So she took her luggage, which included her bridal gown, to the home of her new in-laws, but was rearrested nine days later and taken back to the airport.
Lord Avebury then intervened and suggested that the lady might be mentally disturbed, because she had taken on overdose of pills. I do not know the nature of the psychiatrist's report, but I can only assume that it was a negative one and that it was not considered that she came within ambit of the Act which would have protected her as a mental patient, because she was sent back. I plead with the Minister to give me an assurance that the full weight of his office will be brought to bear upon the Islamabad control office, because this young woman, who has been through such torture, has an absolute right under the statute to join her husband in this country as soon as he can arrange it.
I could spend hours talking about my constituents but I will confine myself to two cases which are very much in my mind and which keep me awake at night, even though they do not keep the Under-Secretary awake at night. Another of my constituents, Mr. Qadir, has his home ready, and his marriage is 21 months old. He has been interviewed at the Croydon


office and, as far as I know, there are no impediments and he should have a clearance. I do not know when the Under-Secretary will be going to Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, but if it is very soon perhaps he can do something then. But I do not think he will run to earth any traffic in illegal immigrants, because I do not think they would parade themselves around the Islamabad office, the Bombay office or the Bengal office. I have not been to Bangladesh, but I have been to those other offices and I think that illegal immigrants will use other routes.
I am aware that there are other hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who want to join in the debate, so instead of talking about other constituents I shall merely say a few words about the reports of the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration. As the right hon. Member for Stechford pointed out, we are awaiting the rejoinder of the Department of Education and Science to our recent study. The London Borough of Ealing is worried about a curtailment of the money which they get for the bussing system, which they intend to phase out when they are able to do so, and I ask hon. and right hon. Gentlemen to pay attention to the evidence given to the Select Committee by the London Borough of Ealing. The borough is very conscious of the need to increase primary school places at the west end of Ealing, which is in my division. But, as it cannot do that immediately, I ask the Under-Secretary to look carefully at the representations that will be made.
The question of police-immigrant relations has been worrying the London Borough of Ealing, and the Home Office must understand that there is some substance in the complaints. But it is also necessary for the immigrants to understand that the police are certainly not at war with the immigrant community. That could not possibly be so, if the report of the Select Committee is correct in stating that most Asian people are more law abiding than the rest of us, because the old Southall area is essentially an Asian community area. I have been very sensitive about this matter and have continually warned against exaggeration.
I suggested earlier that the 1971 Act imposed upon the police certain new

duties which should never have been imposed upon them, because a policeman's duty is to look for suspicious characters, and if he did not do that he could not do his job. Officers vary considerably in the way they carry out their duties, but we know that the police themselves have been working on this problem. I have visited the police training establishment—the "knife and fork college", as they call it ; the top hat college.
But there was the Kane case, where a boy was thought to have stolen £50 from a garage and it turned out that the money had never been missing, so he could not have stolen it. Details of that case, which involved allegations of brutality, were sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. I wrote to the Minister of State and he eventually replied that the Metropolitan Police, under no less a person than Sir Robert Mark himself, had carried out an investigation. But the Minister's reply to me begs a great many questions, such as where the interrogation took place. The Minister's letter stated that the interrogation could be seen from the road, but that is nonsense to anybody who knows the locality.
I do not want to bandy words about this case, except to say that it underscores the need for a different system of police inquiries—a need which the right hon. Gentleman said he accepted 12 months ago. We wait for an announcement about this new system. We do not want the police to be seen as judge and jury in their own court. A reform is long overdue, and that view is supported by the Police Federation. It would go a long way towards allaying people's fears that, because of the profound esprit de corps in the police force, painstaking investigations into allegations of malpractice do not take place.
I conclude by emphasising the principles on which I began my speech. I believe that as regards the immigrants' struggle to have a system of family unity in this country much more can be said about what militates against it, and so on, which involves much technical detail which is flowing continuously into the Home Office. But there is a twin entity of desire on the part of immigrants to make bridges and to build friendships. They have inevitably done that, though


not to the marked degree that many of us hoped. One-third of the immigrant population, if we think of immigrants as coloured people, brown and black, have been born in this country. They are, therefore, brown and black Britishers. They pass through the British education system. When I take parties of coloured and white youngsters through the House I find that there is no feeling of distinction between them.
In the development of our multiracial society the music of the future is to be heard in the universities, colleges and schools, where there is no militant racialism but only the presence of mutant anti-racialism. "Enoch in the dock" is the cry in the universities. The Young Conservatives of London have disowned the right hon. Gentleman's main theme that it is valid to send people out of this country in great numbers. The British people would not stand for that. That is not in our spirit or nature. It is not what we desire. The future is not with the middle class and certainly not with the Government. It is with the working class, which I understand as well as any because of my background. Before becoming a Member of the House I was a trade union education officer, a former railway worker. We had the very early experience—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is going very wide indeed. He has been speaking for 26 minutes.

Mr. Bidwell: We had the earliest experience of mixing up the fine principles which people have applied in approaching these problems. This is the kind of society which British working-class people know.

6.23 p.m.

Mr. W. F. Deedes: Without endorsing every word that the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Bidwell) has said, I am glad to be speaking immediately after him because we are both founder members of the same club, the members of which, I think, now predominate in the Chamber.
I should like to acknowledge very warmly my debt to the members of the Select Committee, in particular the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Bottomley), its distinguished Chairman under the previous Government. In a very sensitive area, the members of the Select Committee have made it possible

for the Committee to issue unanimous reports on four subjects—it would have been five but for the last General Election—some of which at least have touched some of the realities which face us.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) whose return to this milieu we welcome—he seems hardly to have been away—referred to the response from the Department of the Environment, the Home Office and the Department of Education and Science. I would only say that we await these responses with interest. We are awaiting with rather additional impatience the response from the Department of the Environment. We welcome what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science said in reply to a Question about the speed with which her Department will be responding. I have no complaints on that score.
We visited some 30 centres which are grappling with this relatively new social challenge and we talked to about 1,000 witnesses. This place comes in for a good deal of knocking about. However, the fact that the Select Committee should have been able to present about 152 unanimous recommendations, some of which at least have borne fruit, seems to be a modest advertisement for the way in which we can, if so minded, tackle contentious subjects in a reasonably constructive way. I thank the hon. Members who are present for their contribution. Nor do I think that anyone who has read objectively the report on education would accuse us of conspiring to conceal difficulties or of selling truth short in order to get a consensus.
Having said that, I must now speak entirely for myself, not committing the Committee in any way. I admit at once to a profound uneasiness about the way things are going in this sphere. I feel simply that we are not matching the task that we have set ourselves by the resources needed to get us out of trouble. Notwithstanding all that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said this afternoon about urban aid and so on, to some of which I shall come shortly, after five years in this work, and particularly after the last report on the schools, that is my predominant impression.
I take issue with those who think that it is in the best interests of race relations


to belittle the difficulties. Our last report stated :
If … one conclusion stands out above all others, it is that we have failed to grasp and are still failing to grasp the scale of what we have taken on. Far too many who are closely involved show reluctance to assess it realistically.
There are many factors, which I shall not rehearse now, which induce those with responsibility in this sphere to play down the size of the task. They do it often in reality, not because they are complacent but because they themselves are uneasy.
I see no way out of this difficulty unless we can persuade ourselves—I hope that the Select Committee has offered a lead on this—to bring much more candour to bear on the subject and to face and state uncomfortable facts and not run away from them. On a more controversial matter, we ought not always to turn our face away from people who say things that we dislike.
I want now to make some comments about my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) who was dealt with rather severely, as always, by the hon. Member for Southall.

Mr. Ridwell: Not severely enough.

Mr. Deedes: For my part, I should like less abuse of what my right hon. Friend says and more disposition to sift and weigh what he says and then, if necessary, to argue with it. The voice of my right hon. Friend is not diminished by disapproving silences or abuse ; it is simply magnified. It is not good enough to declare always that he is wrong, out of step or offensive on this subject and that we, by contrast, are always reasonable and right—because we are not. In the past we have proved ourselves to be ingorant, complacent and self-deceiving on this subject. I am talking not about some people in the country but about Members of this House. If my right hon. Friend has erred from time to time, which he has, by exaggeration or by hyperbole, others have equally erred and played into his hands by seeking to gloss over awkward facts and figures. When the Select Committee's proceedings finished, my right hon. Friend was entitled to say to the country at large "I told you so." It

played into his hands. He cannot be blamed for the staff of Government Departments who have been presenting wrong figures.
It is as well to face the fact that there are still many in the areas of concentration, and of all parties, who have not reconciled themselves to the policies and their consequences of the last 25 years. Those who shared experiences with me in the sub-continent may agree that if 25 million British people had settled in the last 25 years in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, there might be some in the sub-continent who felt the same way. That is a side of the coin which we do not look at often enough. If these irreconcilables are totally wrong, why have we progressively changed our policy and become more restrictive? The present Government and the previous Government have done this. There is no notional figure for immigration or level at which it is possible scientifically to declare that enough is enough.
We must recognise that we have had no strategy and no long-term policy. As successive Acts of Parliament have shown, we have played it from hand to mouth. The policy has been entirely pragmatic. We have played it by ear, moving from one expedient to the next. As in other spheres, events have then occurred outside our control which have pushed us off course.
I welcome what my right hon. Friend said about illegal immigration, although I have other views on this. I also welcome what he said about overseas students. I want, however, to dwell on the Kenya situation. It is important that we embark upon dealing with it in the full knowledge of all the figures involved. I shall put one or two questions to which I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will be able to reply.
Of the 3,500 vouchers now under discussion, 1,500 were used for Uganda but have not been used in the last year. Of these, about 750 have been going to Kenya and the proposal now is—I say this subject to checking—to double the number. I make it 1,500 additional vouchers for Kenya, a round total of between 5,000 and 6,000 people in all, because vouchers are given only to the heads of families. My information, however, is that roughly 15,000 are in the


queue—that is to say, under pressure to leave Kenya. Only 1,500 had their licences taken away, but about 15,000 are in the queue. In all, there might be about 30,000 United Kingdom passport holders. I stress that these figures are subject to checking.
My question is this. As I suspect that the numbers may be a little larger than we are at present talking of, what approach has been made to India? The Indian Government are willing to receive a number of these people, given an endorsement from the British High Commission that we accept ultimate responsibility. I think I am right in saying that only about 8 per cent. of those with that endorsement who went to India changed their minds and wished to come to the United Kingdom. That is a small percentage.
The Indian Government have been highly co-operative to my mind, as I am sure the Minister would agree. Are we enabling the Indian Government to make the contribution they would make, given the half-way move by us, the certificate of responsibility? These figures, I repeat, may prove to be larger than we are thinking about. There is an area I should like to see explored.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Is it not the case, and does not experience bear out, that the Indian Government do not refuse these people, even without the certificate of ultimate responsibility?

Mr. Deedes: I cannot answer that with certainty, and I want to stay within my own knowledge. The Indian Government have shown a mood of considerable co-operation. I hope to say more about this later.
I revert to my earlier theme. If we continue in our haphazard way administatively to deal with the consequences of a haphazard immigration policy, we shall run into serious trouble. That is the biggest conclusion I have reached after five years' work on the Select Committee. In no sphere is this more true than in schools.
Let us consider, for example, the way in which we have been assessing our task. The Department of Education and Science feels that it has been unfairly pilloried over its selection formula, which has now been dropped without,

apparently, any alternative. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science wished to be present and has apologised for her absence. It is vain for the Department to declare that counting coloured heads in schools is of no assistance and that in any case teachers and local education authorities are unwilling to do it. The Select Committee never asked for such a count. What we have sought is a way of assessing the special needs of children entering this country, or children who are born here, for whom English presents special difficulties. How in the world can resources be applied unless facts are known? That is our case.
Nor is it valid to declare that indigenous children may suffer the same difficulty and must enter the same calculations. Rightly or wrongly, we have made discrimination against coloured people an offence, endorsed by an Act of Parliament. If we push through our schools coloured children who are deficient in English and thus handicapped when they seek jobs in an advanced society, we are sowing for a terrible harvest of discrimination and bitterness and storing up trouble for the future. Some schools in some areas are tackling this problem, but others are not.
Leicester, a city well to the fore, still reckons that between 15 and 20 per cent. of immigrant children in Leicester might leave school at 16 with insufficient capacity in English to compete with contemporaries in the labour market. That is in a relatively advanced city.
The overall picture is of resources far behind needs. It is against this huge deficit that we must realistically examine now the entry of children from countries of origin. Here I take issue with Whitehall. There are still considerable numbers to come here, particularly from Pakistan. I listened carefully to what my right hon. Friend said. I am not entering into argument now about his estimate of the number of dependants still to come to this country. Some people seem to have difficulty in grasping that as long as we have, quite rightly, free movement between this country and countries of origin—and 50,000 entered this country last year from the subcontinent alone, after visits abroad—we


will never reach a finite point with dependants, although the figures may decline.
To attempt to show a decline in current figures may not be meaningless, but it can mislead. As the right hon. Member for Stechford complained, queues of applicants at Dacca, Islamabad and Delhi are growing ever longer.

Mr. Wilkinson: My right hon. Friend mentioned Pakistan. Appendix 2 of the report of the Select Committee, derived from immigration section figures in Islamabad, shows that the number of entrants on employment vouchers declined from 13,526 in 1963 to 75 in 1972. The number of dependants has dropped more than threefold in the past six years, from 17,500 in 1967 to about 5,500 in 1972. Although there are long queues of would-be entrants to the United Kingdom at our embassy there has been a marked decline in admissions.

Mr. Deedes: The appendices must also be examined for the estimates from the posts of how many are still likely to come. There are more than my right hon. Friend is willing to accept, and the waiting time grows ever longer. The right hon. Member for Stechford is wrong to say that officers are acting in a highhanded manner to those who apply. I have rarely seen British officers anywhere applying themselves more conscientiously to a harder duty than these entry certificate officers. They are dealing as patiently as they can with a difficult lot of applicants.
It is wrong to blame the officers. They are confronted by a large number of applicants who, having been bamboozled by agents, have secured—I will not say how—false particulars. The work is enormously increased by an unconditional appeal system. Figures for Islamabad alone show that in 1972 about 1,300 applications were refused. Half of those applicants appealed, and 82 per cent. of the appeals were rejected. That system should be urgently reviewed, in fairness to the genuine applicants.
The crux, however, is the continued admission of 15,000 or more children up to the age of 18 a year unconditionally. Those children are the bulk of the dependants. We said in our report :

With hindsight the drawbacks can be seen of the policy which has prevailed since 1962 of permitting dependent children up to the age of 16 (since January 1973, 18) unconditionally. In the eyes of many immigrants the short-term prospects of their young on the labour market have understandably taken precedence over their long-term educational interests.
Because wider considerations are involved we did not pursue our conclusion, but I must add a personal view. To add this total annually to the heavy deficit of children deficient in English already in our schools should be thought about very carefully. Hon. Members may well exclaim that to curb it would be to divide families. I doubt whether the House realises the extent to which our policy has divided families already and continues to divide them. Many families are divided now, and will by choice so remain. Sons are here and daughters there, mothers here or there. There are many complete families in this country—it depends very much on the different parts of the sub-continent from which they come—but many families are split and will remain split.
We should realise also that the Governments of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh take a far more realistic view of this than we do. They do not seek outlets for their people here. It is one of the great illusions that they do. They would not resent or resist curbs sensibly applied. Their sole concern, as Ministers know, is discrimination, the humiliation of their citizens already here. That is precisely where our policy is apt to take us with these young if we take on more than we can properly help with their English and future chances of employment.
We must be businesslike about the matter. It is incumbent upon the House as well as Ministers to exercise judgment, to look ahead a little. Outside the House, the claims and counter-claims are difficult to assess. But I should like modestly to suggest that an all-party Select Committee is available to offer the facts and throw a little light on the subject.
If Governments duck unpalatable findings, if they flinch from the necessary steps to bring achievement of the task within our reach, in the short term they may avoid trouble and criticism but they will be sowing for a bitter harvest. They will unwittingly be leading to a


Situation—what irony it would be!—in which some of the grimmer prognostications of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West might even come to pass.

6.43 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Bottomley: I thank the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) for his kind references to my work as the first Chairman of the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration. He will recall that, when the Committee was set up and I found that he was the leading member of the then Opposition, I suggested to him that we should have two aims. The first was to try to get race relations out of party conflict. The second was to get the members to project their minds 20 years forward, to see that the public would then be able to say that, as a result of the thoughtfulness and application of the Committee, race relations were better than they might otherwise have been.
As part of that exercise we not only appealed to the members of the Committee to co-operate but we put them in alphabetical order in the Committee room to avoid a party line-up. In that first Committee we had members ranging from the extreme Right to the extreme Left, but because the Committee had to study the facts and be objective in its reporting it is no surprise that each report presented to Parliament was unanimous.
Our first report, presented in 1969, dealt with the coloured school leavers. We naturally had meetings in the House, but we also felt that to study the problem properly we should go outside as well. We went into the towns, and there was resentment from the local authorities about that. The Leader of the House was told that going into the towns was not the business of Members of Parliament.
Having been a local councillor, and at one time Vice-President of the Association of Municipal Corporations, I told local government representatives that the last thing I would ever want to do was to damage local authorities. I said "What we are trying to do as Members of Parliament is to see the problems caused for you as a result of legislation passed by the House". In due course the local authorities were anxious that we should go

to their towns to see the situation for ourselves.
We met not only local authority representatives but representatives of the police, trade unions, employers, teachers, the Race Relations Board and the Community Relations Commission. We saw as many people as we could to obtain first-hand information. We naturally also sought the advice of Government Departments and heard evidence from them.
The first report produced 46 recommendations, all of which were accepted. Most of them have now been put into effect.
We went on to consider Commonwealth immigration. Unfortunately, before we could produce a report the General Election intervened, but the hon. Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair) and I produced a report for the Runnymede Trust. We could not state the views of the Select Committee in that report, but I think everyone accepts that the Select Committee agreed that the entry certificate system for controlling the admission of dependants had to be seen to be fair and efficient.
Incidentally, the distances travelled, the delays that result from pressures of demand and the need to document fully to meet appeal requirements, and the detailed examinations which are carried out at their interviews, must cause hardship for many applicants. However, I share the view of the right hon. Member for Ashford, though perhaps not so wholeheartedly, about our officers. On the whole I accept it, but the circumstances cause the difficulties to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) referred.
It is inevitable that genuine applicants whose bone fides cannot be proved without careful examination pay the price of having to undergo the strict checks made necessary by the fact that some people seek to evade the controls. As happens elsewhere, the innocent suffer because of the guilty.
It appears to me, on the basis of cases sent to me and to other members of the Committee and of what I have heard this afternoon, that there is interminable delay for those applying to come to this country from Commonwealth countries. I think that an explosive situation is building up,


and the Government must treat the matter urgently.
When the Under-Secretary goes to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh he must satisfy himself that in the High Commission posts there are enough staff of the right quality and with the right attitudes, who have been given the right training and experience, to carry out the difficult and delicate task that has been entrusted to them.
The Committee also studied housing. The housing problem is not merely an immigrant problem. It is the responsibility of the Government, Parliament, local authorities and society to provide good housing for everyone. In our report we highlighted some of the problems facing the immigrant community.
I, too, am disappointed that the Department of the Environment has not yet seen fit after a long delay to offer some answers to the 36 recommendations we made, but I shall not dwell on that point because it has been adequately emphasised.
We then went on to police and immigration relations, and there is no doubt that there is need for improvement in this matter. But the police as an organised section of our society are probably better informed and better able to handle race relations than other organised sections. Some of the older men that we met had their patience tested and perhaps they can be criticised, but often not without some sympathy for their position. Equally, some of the young men are arrogant. I am confident that some of my colleagues and others too must have had the experience that I did in one of the provincial cities where an inspector was described as a racialist. I was so disappointed with his behaviour that I mentioned the matter to his chief constable, and I hope that it was put right.
On another occasion when the committee went to Bramshill police college I suggested to a class of about 30 inspectors that it might be a good thing if occasionally they said a few words of welcome to a member of the Asian community in Urdu. One of the inspectors asked "Why should we learn their language? They have come to our country." I looked around the class and was glad to see that not one of the other inspectors nodded assent. They all disagreed with him. I

should like in particular to pay a tribute to the chief constable of my constituency. It is not often remembered that at the time of the Notting Hill riots there were also riots in Middlesbrough.
When I became the Member of Parliament for Middlesbrough, East in 1962 I was aware of these troubles. The police chief said to me that he had a way of handling them which was not orthodox, and he hoped that he could count on my co-operation as the local MP. I believe that, as a result of his handling of the situation then and since, race relations on Teesside are as good as anywhere in the country. I can assure my colleagues on the Select Committee that I have never pressed for the Committee to go to Middlesbrough but we have a substantial number of immigrants in the area.
There is a need for immigrant organisations to make their contribution to a better understanding, and on the whole they do it. However, there are some self-appointed local representatives who behave in a way which does not encourage good race relations. The Home Office paid us a compliment which I believe we deserve—I am glad that we met with its approbation—when it said that the Select Committee had made a notable and constructive contribution to the discussion of the emotive subject of race relations.
Our most recent report has been on education. The right hon. Member for Ashford has explained why the Secretary of State for Education cannot be here. I am sorry that she is absent but I am confident she got my message that I intended to be critical of the Department. Education presents a muddled picture with contradictory statements issued by the Department. We described the Department's formula for the keeping of statistics as useless. The Department should have been prepared for that because in 1969, when the coloured school leavers report was submitted, we drew attention to this fact. It said that the Department should look at the matter more carefully and produce a formula which would be useful.
We made positive proposals about the handling of the immigrant problem in the schools and we asked the Government to give serious consideration to numbers and to the period during which


immigrant children attend school. We first drew attention to the problem in 1969 but it was not until this last report that we had action. What action did we get? A reply to an inspired Question accepted one part of our recommendation but not the substance of it. I see the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Kinsey), who is also a member of the Committee, suggesting that the Question was not inspired. If it was not inspired, I withdraw what I said, but it seems strange that the Department answered a Question dealing with this important matter, accepting the minor part of a recommendation and ignoring the substance of it. Whether it was an inspired Question or not, it would at least have been polite to inform the Chairman of the Select Committee about it and about the proposed reply. At the Committee meeting I remonstrated with the Chairman and he told me that he knew nothing about it. I think I am therefore entitled, on behalf of myself and other members of the Committee, to express disapproval at the way in which the Department treated the Committee.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Timothy Raison): I have been authorised by my right hon. Friend to say that she regrets what happened and that she has conveyed her regrets to the Chairman of the Select Committee.

Mr. Bottomley: I thank the Under-Secretary very much. It is very kind of him to give that apology.
In the report we said there were inadequate programmes for coloured schoolchildren at local levels and inadequate information and direction from Government sources. We said there was too little planning and evaluation to improve the schools for the future. The Under-Secretary was kind enough to convey the right hon. Lady's apologies to us. I hope that the Department will give serious consideration to these matters and in due course perhaps make the kind of report that the Committee is expecting. I gather that this may be done before Easter.
I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Stechford on the Opposition Front Bench again. Perhaps it would be appropriate for me to end with the words he uttered when he was Home Secretary. He described the coming

together of the races not as a flattening process, not as a process of assimilation, but as an equal opportunity accompanied by cultural diversity in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance. Our greatest opportunity is to participate in the democratic process in our community. Good citizens do not intrude upon the personal territory of others to dictate or decide in what way those persons shall pursue happiness. A considerate person will do his part in helping to build a community in which everyone has an equal chance to live his life to the full and command respect and consideration from his fellows. In return for these opportunities and that respect and consideration, it behoves everyone, whatever his rights, to make the best contribution of which he is capable and thereby to earn the respect of others.
I should like to join the right hon. Member for Ashford in saying that no two men could have been served by a better group than those who have been on the successive Select Committees. An indication of that is that when Parliament tries to tackle one of the social problems of the day, it can do it and it can do it well.

6.59 p.m.

Mr. Robert Redmond: I shall not pursue the points raised by the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Bottomley), but I support his comments about the police. It has always been remarkable to me that the police keep a balance in a most complicated situation, and the right hon. Gentleman's comments on the police in his constituency certainly apply to the police in mine.
I should like to support what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes). I want to deal with what I shall call the numbers game and I have particular constituency reasons for doing so this week. On Tuesday evening there appeared in the Bolton Evening News a feature article headed
Shock increase in immigrant figures".
It was based on various research done by the secretary of the Bolton Council for Community Relations. The figures were no shock to me because the true figures were similar to those that appeared in the paper. But it is time that we returned, in the subject of immigration,


race relations and so on, to a proper use of the English language.
The so-called "shock" figures in the article indicated that one-eighth of Bolton's population were foreign-born or of immigrant birth. Because of the euphemistic way that we try to discuss the race relations subject, we now get the picture that one-eighth of Bolton's population is coloured and that that proportion will be increased through the birth of coloured children. The article confuses me when it says that one in 12 is coloured. It purports to give the actual figures, saying that Bolton has 19,058 residents born abroad or to immigrant families. Sizeable minorities come from Ireland, Poland, the Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia, and they are all white.
I ask myself, what about the third generation of coloured people who have been living in Bolton for a long time? Their grandfathers might have been immigrants, but they themselves are not. It is time that we stopped playing with numbers and applied the problem of community relations in two parts. The first is that we must accept that Britain is overcrowded and we cannot take any more people. I said that to a recent meeting of 400 members of the Pakistan Society in Bolton. My remarks were reported in the Press. The following week I received a number of letters saying "It is time you said that in Parliament and not at a meeting of Pakistanis." Now I have said it in Parliament and got it on the record. But it was apparently a revelation that a Member of Parliament, who supported the Government, could say a thing like that, because it did not seem to have got about that Parliament had taken action. I found that the Pakistanis and Indian people of Bolton who heard me say it agreed with me entirely.
The second part of the problem that we must face on community relations is that Hindus and Moslems do not yet integrate either with themselves or with the indigenous people. I have two examples. The Moslems do not realise the chaos they can cause in factories when they follow the Koran to the letter and observe Ramadan or get out their prayer mats at an inconvenient part of the working day. We should also note

that the Hindus who are in Bolton, and probably in other parts of the country, operate the caste system which is illegal in India. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will take note that we have second-class citizens among the immigrants. We should face up to the fact.
Alongside the newspaper article, in the right-hand column, was a letter to the editor from a Mrs. McBriar of Radcliffe. Mrs. McBriar showed a genuine lack of understanding about Parliament and its procedures. Among other points, she said that too many laws were passed without the consent of the electorate. As an example, she mentioned the subject of immigration. She said that the subject had never appeared in a party manifesto. I regard that as typical of the lack of information about immigration that seems to prevail throughout the country.
I have tried—I know that the Government have tried, but I wish that they would try harder—to drive home the fact that the Immigration Act 1971 is on the statute book. I realise that a vast problem is created by the presence of people whose habits and customs are totally different from ours, but it should be known that the Act has been passed and that Britain is probably now the most difficult country in the world to which to gain access.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary knows of case after case which I have sent him which prove that the Act is strictly operated. Far too many Indians and Pakistanis are setting off from their home country intending to stay in the United Kingdom for a short time and are turned back at Heathrow because they do not have proper papers. I accept that there may be delays on the Indian sub-continent in issuing proper papers, but it is right that they should be turned back if they have not got proper papers on arrival. If the fact that that happens were more widely known, we would be reassuring some of those who are worried about the immigrant numbers here. We know that under the Act dependent relatives may come to this country, but do people realise how tough the Home Office is in interpreting the word "dependant"? Again, I have passed to my hon. Friend case after case showing that we are extremely strict in interpreting it. It is right that we should be strict.
I mentioned attending a meeting of the Pakistan Society in Bolton some months ago. I was told that coloured people are assumed to be guilty before they have the chance to prove anything. The society cited to me the case of a man who had been living in Lancashire and working there for some time. He went home to Pakistan, but when he came back he was refused entry because nobody believed that he was genuinely coming in and he was thought of as an illegal immigrant. I checked the incident with my hon. Friend and we discovered that the man arrived at Heathrow with a passport which had obviously been torn to shreds and sewn together in amateur fashion and that he had baggage bearing someone else's name. In those circumstances, I do not consider that it was unreasonable for the immigration officer to be suspicious.
My advice to anyone is that, whatever the colour of his skin, he needs proper papers to enter the United Kingdom. I have always made it clear to the coloured community in Bolton that I regard my passport as extremely important. I should not want to try to get back into this country without it after going abroad.
We must get it home to people that they must not try to come here unless they are absolutely sure that they have proper papers. I have asked the Bolton Council of Community Relations to stress this among the immigrant communities. I hope that the Home Office will also try to do something and that, when my hon. Friend goes to the Indian sub-continent, he will read the Act in all the languages he can and make it clear that Britain is a difficult country to enter. It is necessary to do this because it is necessary for places of stress caused by the influx of new people—places like Bolton—to get more assistance. I was glad to hear what my hon. Friend said about that today, and I shall study his remarks in HANSARD tomorrow. I will be asking him how much Bolton will get out of it and I hope to get a generous answer.
We have peculiar problems in Bolton because we have large numbers of people who are not being integrated with the ordinary communities. Sometimes there is no attempt to integrate. My right hon. Friend talked about white people learning to live with immigrants. But I stress with all the power I can that I

am as much concerned for members of the indigenous community, many of whom feel adversely affected by the influx that has taken place in recent years. The best way to deal with this is to speak plainly and stop talking of immigrants when we mean coloured people. It should not be regarded as racialist to say that a man's skin is not as white as ours.
We must accept the fact that not all people with coloured skins are immigrants. My right hon. Friend was correct when he mentioned that. I have constituents whose skin is a very different colour from mine but whose accent is exactly what mine is—or sometimes even more broad Lancashire than mine—and I do not regard them as immigrants. But I recognise that they look a little different, and with the influx of others they are very often told "Go home" when they have no other place to go to but Bolton, because that is where they were born and that is where they belong.

7.11 p.m.

Mr. William Wilson: The Home Secretary was correct when he told us that, in a number of parts of Britain, we have indeed a multi-racial society. He was also correct when he went on to say that that situation will continue. Anyone who believes that repatriation will solve any problems that immigration has brought to the country is just beating the air. Multi-racial Britain is here for many parts of our country, and it is here to stay. But the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), with whom I agreed completely, was correct in telling us that the need for candour is overwhelming. It is far better that we should acknowledge situations as they exist than try to pretend that they are not present with us.
I was one of the three members of the Select Committee who visited the City of Liverpool. I need not tell the House the findings and comments we made as a result of our visit. They are set out in our report for all to read. But I confess that I came away from Liverpool with a feeling of something approaching depression because Liverpool, as far as its coloured population is concerned, is quite different from any other part of this country.
Liverpool is different because its coloured population has been with it for


generations. If hon. Members take the opportunity to read what we felt in visiting Paddington comprehensive school in Liverpool, they will see the need for a positive attempt and a positive policy by all of us to face the issues that the presence of different nationalities brings to our communities. These problems will not just go away.
On the subject of immigration and race relations, I speak not only as a member of the Select Committee but as one who, within his constituency, has many immigrants of varying sorts. In addition, I speak as a lawyer who is consulted not only by those who live in Coventry but by immigrants throughout Britain. It is out of that knowledge and out of the knowledge I acquired from my visits to India with the Race Relations Committee that I believe that we have to acknowledge that immigration into this country, despite what the Home Secretary said today, is likely to continue in measurable terms for some long period still to come.
It is a pity that the House today is dealing with the whole matter of race relations and immigration. I had hoped that the two last reports of the Select Committee, in relation to the police and education, could each be made the subject of a separate debate because each in its own way is of vast importance. The relations of the immigrants with the police are important in maintaining good general relations. The impact of education upon the immigrant population is a way of creating good relations with the immigrant community. It is, therefore, a pity that these two matters are not being dealt with separately.
I want to speak now about the relationship with the police. For that purpose, I want to quote from Volume 2 of the evidence taken by the Select Committee in 1971–72. It is reported on page 146. The witness is Mr. William Palfrey, then Chief Constable of Lancashire, the largest police force outside the Metropolitan force. He said :
Up to three years ago you very rarely found an Asiatic boy running foul of our juvenile liaison scheme ; it was practically unknown. Even today there are fewer Asiatics coming to the net than our host children. It is because, as my chaps tell me, there is a closer family life amongst the Asiatic families ; but unfortunately the Asiatic children

are beginning to follow some of the bad habits of our host children, so that we are getting one or two through the net ; but even at this moment
—February 1972—
there is not one Asiatic under supervision by any juvenile liaison officer in my county, and this speaks well for their families.
Mr. Palfrey was then questioned by the right hon. Member for Ashford, who asked him :
You are saying that, talking in terms of juvenile crime, the Asiatic juvenile compares favourably with our own?
He replied :
If our own children were as good as the Asiatics then we would not have such a crime problem.
The right hon. Member for Ashford asked :
Would you apply that also to the West Indians?
Mr. Palfrey replied :
Yes, but not quite to the same extent.
That was the voice of a most experienced chief constable. The point I want to make is that what the Chief Constable of Lancashire said in his colourful answer was repeated time and time again by the police forces we contacted on this question. The pattern was that as far as the commission of crime was concerned the Asians were the best behaved, the West Indians came next and then our own indigenous population. What puzzles me is that this was the general picture that was given to us by police forces right throughout the country, and yet we get continually the allegation that the police discriminate against those whom they interrogate because they are coloured.
We had before the Select Committee witnesses who said to us, speaking of the police. "They pick on us." The remarkable thing was, as we pointed out in our report, that often, although the allegations were made, documentary support was lacking. Frequently the examples given were quite old. I have never believed that every policeman is a Dixon of Dock Green. They are not. On occasions they are bound to make mistakes and to be in the wrong. It might help if sometimes the respective chief constables could admit that their officers were occasionally in the wrong. These allegations of discrimination against the coloured population by the police are easily made but


the evidence to support them is often woefully weak.
As a lawyer I am consulted by immigrants from all over the country. Long before I entered this House, and even today, I spend my time defending those who are charged with criminal offences. I always defend and never prosecute. Any lawyer in my position could say that this allegation that the police picked upon certain sectors of the community is easily made. Students, taxi-drivers, bus-drivers and, for good measure, prostitutes say, "The police always pick upon us." This is an allegation continually reiterated and does considerable harm to immigrant-police relations. This is something I have seen time and again.
In all of my experience I have never had a case in which I considered that the police had acted in the way in which they acted because of the colour of the skin of the man being interrogated. It is only right that that should be said, especially now when there has been a spate of propaganda against the police in respect of alleged discrimination. I say this as someone who knows the position from the inside. My experience has been largely with what is now the Warwickshire and Coventry Constabulary. There is no reason whatever why that experience should be any different from that of any other police force.
I will add that there have been cases in which I have been engaged when I have formed the opinion that the police have gone out of their way to help a defendant because he had a coloured skin. I would say that with the police forces the boot is on the other foot. It is not that they discriminate against a man or woman with a coloured skin. It is more the other way round. They go out of their way to help so as to prevent any allegation that such a person has been discriminated against.
I do not say there are no cases which cannot be raised and queried. What I do say is that for every one that can be produced I am certain that I could produce many others in which a white man or woman would raise the same complaint. I am glad to have the opportunity of saying that.
The Home Secretary told us he anticipates that there will be a fall in the number of immigrants, whether heads of

families or dependants. We have to yield to the greater knowledge of his Department. It would be a pity if what he said turns out to be wrong. We have to treat all these matter with a certain amount of circumspection. I recollect that it was said in 1969 that the number of dependent families would decrease. The logic and reasoning behind that was the Immigration Act 1962 which resulted in the number of heads of families being cut down. It would take about seven years for them to be able to set up home. By 1969 it was said the number of dependent families would decline. We know what the situation is. It did not quite work out that way.
Above all I want good relations with the immigrant community. If we have a similar situation to that of 1969, if the prophecy turns out to be wrong, it can only rebound upon us in a way that we do not want. What gives added force to my remarks is that we know that the queues at Islamabad, Delhi and Bombay are longer than ever. It is reasonable to think that the applications which will be made must of necessity be large and the backlog will be such as we have never previously seen.
The Home Secretary will probably acknowledge that one of the reasons why the staff of the immigration section in Islamabad, Delhi and Bombay is kept down is that if there were more staff, more people would make application. I hope that what the right hon. Gentleman has said is correct because upon that could easily depend our good community relations.
I am glad to hear that the Minister is to go to the sub-continent of India to see for himself what is happening in the immigration offices. I have been to India twice in the past 14 months. It has to be acknowledged that the burden we are placing upon the staff who administer the issue of entry certificates is considerable. They cannot see the end of the road and the harder they work the larger the burden upon them seems to be. They have always to take into account the real problem of those seeking to gain entry but who ought not to have entry. Because of that they have to be rigorous towards the genuine applicant. This rebounds upon us. The man whose wife genuinely wishes to join him wants to know why


she should be interrogated in this way. It simply rebounds upon the entry certificate officers and the other staff.
There is the question of appeals. I have participated in many appeals on behalf of immigrants, on behalf of those in this country trying to bring their families here. I say in self-defence that my record of success is much higher than the 80 per cent. which seems to be the average. The House does not perhaps realise the amount of work that is involved in appeals. It is nothing for the paperwork in one appeal to amount to 20 sheets of foolscap paper.
The carefulness with which the entry certificate officer has to give his report is conditioned by the fact that somewhere, somebody at some time will go through it with a tooth comb with the purpose of trying to succeed in an appeal. I hope that when the Minister goes to the subcontinent he will see for himself the great burden that is placed upon entry certificate officers. Speaking from considerable experience, I pay testimony to the care with which the entry certificate officers do their work. They are subjected to many criticisms, but they do a good job in extremely difficult circumstances.
The machinery that we have set up to make sure that those who claim to come here have the right to come and are enabled to come is considerable, I have one answer for those who criticise what we do. No country in the world does as much to protect the right of those who wish to enter the country as does Great Britain, and it is time that we said that aloud.

7.31 p.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I hope that the hon. Member for Coventry, South (Mr. William Wilson) will not have got himself into any trouble with the Law Society, for he has performed an important service by what he put on the record this afternoon about the behaviour and standards of the police. I hope that the contents of his speech will be well noted out of doors amongst the public generally and in particular amongst the police forces.
The debate has not lacked a whole series of encomia upon the work of the Select Committee, three of whose reports are before the House. Some of the

encomia have been bestowed upon them by hon. Members who belong to that Committee ; but they are reports remarkable in their value and in the quality for which my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) called, of candour.
I want to concentrate upon not the least remarkable of the paragraphs in the report entitled "Education", one to which my right hon. Friend himself referred—paragraph 209.
With hindsight the drawbacks can be seen of the policy which has prevailed since 1962 of permitting dependent children up to the age of 16 (since January 1973, 18)"—
as a matter of fact, throughout most of the whole period since 1962 there has been an extra-statutory concession which went up to the age of 18—
to enter Britain unconditionally.
That is a hindsight which I share.
It is difficult now in 1973 to regain the perspective which existed 11 years ago when the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of that year had reached the statute book. To almost everyone it seemed that we had broken the back of the problem, that at last a necessary resolve had been taken and that, though we could not put away the consequences of what happened before 1962, at any rate the bulk lay behind us and it was merely the implications of what had already happened to which we would have to look in the future. In that perspective it was natural that we should have provided a statutory right of entry for the dependants of those already resident in this country. It was a provision which I approved and which I defended in public. But our expectation was greatly mistaken.
I do not imagine that anyone in 1962 would have credited that between 1961 and 1971 the number of new Commonwealth immigrants would treble. In other words, of the new Commonwealth immigrants who were in this country at the 1971 census, two-thirds had entered during the 1960s. That is a point which I know will be of interest, and maybe unfamiliar, to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Sydney Chapman). I make no complaint of that, because those of us who have lived with this for many more years than he have found it hard to recognise the proportions and the time scale of the event which the House is debating.

Mr. Bidwell: Mr. Bidwell rose—

Mr. Powell: I am anxious to be as brief as possible.

Mr. Bidwell: Mr. Bidwell rose—

Mr. Powell: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. He knows that time and again I have given way to him, and engaged in debate with him ; but I am anxious, and have promised, to make my remarks as brief as possible. I ask him on that account to forgive me for not giving way.
Again, if we take instead of 1961 the point of time when the control came into force, even then we find that the immigration after control came into effect until 1971 census day was equal to the immigration before control. That was a prospect which nobody seriously envisaged at the time when control was first introduced. It was only gradually, as the 1960s moved on, that the proportions of what had happened before and of what was still happening came to our knowledge.
There was, of course, no accurate information on immigration before control was in effect—by the nature of things, by definition, there could not be—but some years passed after 1962 before, in the course of time, the decisive facts began to become known. For me perhaps the first was the lengthening series of birth figures from Wolverhampton and Birmingham. These showed in the case of Wolverhampton that from 1962 onwards—there were no figures before that—never less than one-quarter of all the births were to Commonwealth mothers. This cast an important and undeniable light not only on the future but upon the scale of immigration that had already taken place.
Then in 1967 there was the estimate given from the Government Front Bench that by 1985 the figure for the coloured population might even be "as low as" 2½ million. Shortly after that, however, when the particulars required at registration of births were increased, we learnt that some of the crucial assumptions upon which that official estimate had been made were ill founded and that in fact coloured births—if the expression may be forgiven—were 50 per cent. to 100 per cent. greater in number than had been assumed by those who made the calculation. Now at last, in the early

1970s, despite all the difficulties and limitations of our information, we know that the younger generation, those under 25, in many major towns and cities and in major parts of the metropolis, is from 20 per cent. to 40 per cent. coloured.
I here return to the interesting speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Handsworth. He was right to point out how slippery are projections. Incidentally, what the Registrar-General issues are not predictions but projections of what would be the population, assuming—which, of course, the Registrar-General does not—that the birth rate and all other factors will remain as at the moment. My hon. Friend is also right to say that of all possible factors the birth rate is one of the most slippery—that much misused term which means, when used correctly, births divided by relevant population.
However, the future which is portended by the facts that we now know is not dependent upon projections, and it makes no significant assumption about birth rate—indeed, in nothing I have ever said or written on the subject have I assumed any difference between the birth rate of the new Commonwealth population and that of the indigenous population. We are not looking at a projection or a conjecture about the future. We are looking directly at the future ; for the future is here. The generation aged under 25 is the future, and the make-up of that generation is now determined—the new Commonwealth content of that generation will not diminish, it is determined at least as a minimum. There is, therefore, no element of assumption or conjecture which enters into our thoughts when we say that we are looking at the future.
As long ago as 3rd November 1966, in a debate in another place, my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor said :
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, gave an estimate of the future coloured population in this country in 50 years' time. We have to recognise that in less than that space of time, one-third of the whole population in certain large areas of our big cities is likely to be coloured ; maybe in some cases it will be one-third of the whole."—(OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 3rd November, 1966 ; Vol. 277, c. 707.)
That was an ex-Home Secretary : my right hon. and noble Friend was Home


Secretary from the time when control came into force. He was also ex-Member for a London constituency. Everything that we now know has confirmed the statement of fact which that former Home Secretary made in another place over seven years ago.
Candour and recognition of the realities were mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford. He said that just these were called for in the light of the facts. Yet there is still the usual ingredient of unrealism and hallucination about today's debate. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary in introducing the debate did so with a most comprehensive and thorough speech. Yet I thought, as I listened to it, what irony it was that so much of it—I make no complaint of this—was devoted to figures not one of which exceeded five digits.
It is true that in the end my right hon. Friend got around to quote the false figure, with which we have now been presented by a defective census, of a coloured population at census day of 1½ million. Let it pass, however, whether we accept that incredible minimum figure or a figure of, let us say 2 million, which many who have looked at the other data would regard as more likely. That is not the important fact. The figure is large ; but it is little compared with the future already implicit in what we know—even upon the basis of the census, let alone the corrected census—about the new generation in this country, the generation which will be the future.
It is not possible to acknowledge the fact which seven years ago Lord Brooke put on the record and to have no policy. It is not possible to acknowledge it and, either for a simple Member of Parliament or for a Government, to decline to say "Is this a future which is acceptable?"

Mr. Wilkinson: Mr. Wilkinson rose—

Mr. Powell: I am sorry, my hon. Friend must forgive me. I must be just as between him and the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Bidwell), who would have just complaint if I gave way. I ask my hon. Friend to forgive me for the same reason.
It is not possible to acknowledge that prospect as a fact and, having done so,

to remain silent in front of it. We have to tell the people of this country whether it is a future which is accepted, whether it is a future which is regarded as acceptable. We must tell them; for in the end it is they who will have to decide whether it is acceptable. That is why there has been so shattering a silence, so persistent a silence, year after year from those in authority. They say "We do not know. All this is very conjectural. All this is very uncertain." That is their silence in the face of the prospect which is known.
The Select Committee, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford in his personal capacity, left us in no doubt what was meant by the "drawbacks" now perceived "with hindsight". It has obliged the House to consider, for the first time in any official context, whether it is right that the statutory automatic admission of all genuine dependants as defined should continue. It has not only placed its finger upon what is the principal single cause of the present dimensions of the second phase, the post-1962 phase, of the phenomenon ; it has called in question whether it is right and necessary that divided families should be reunited by the dependants coming to Britain.
Divided families, if they so desire it, should not be prevented from being reunited ; but there is an alternative way, which this country stands ready to assist and which it now faces, now that it has been raised and been placed before the House by the Select Committee.
That in itself is not a policy ; but it is part of a policy, it is the beginnings of a policy. The future implicit in the facts which I have quoted from the mouth of Lord Brooke is not yet irreversible or predetermined. It is not beyond the resources of this country or the policy and Government of this country profoundly to influence whether or not that prospect will be realised. If its realisation, when one has once admitted the scale of it, is fraught with the danger that many believe not only to the indigenous population but to all, the avoidance of it is an object to which the resources and the policy of the State may fitly be harnessed.
Therefore I ask my right hon. Friends to take the first step, which, once taken,


cannot be the last. That is to acknowledge with candour what they must know or what, if they do not know, they can ascertain. It is not too late for this country, with justice and benefit to all and in the interests of everyone concerned, to avert what is portended by the prospect that I have put before the House.

7.51 p.m.

Miss Joan Lestor: I do not want to take up in detail the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), but I merely want to place on record that I believe the policy of allowing dependent children to come to this country as of right is a sane and sensible attitude. Where we fall down—and this is a subject on which some of us are anxious in terms of the high percentage of immigrant children who will be brought into the country—is that we have never matched that intake with the resources and knowledge of how to deal with children from an alien culture who have special language difficulties. The difficulty has not been so much the fact that these children have come here but that we are ill-equipped to deal with the situation and do not devote sufficient resources to it.
I do not believe that all is lost or that we are by any means in a hopeless situation. One of the outstanding things about the latest report on education is that it calls for more resources, for more training of people in education and for a better understanding among us all of how we can begin to live and operate properly in a multiracial society.
One of the difficulties about immigration and race relations in this country over 10 or more years has been the fact that the argument has always been advanced—an argument put forward not only by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West but by others—that the way to improve race relations is to restrict numbers and to send back people who come here from a different country, or perhaps—this may be the view of some—even to sterilise them so that they will have no more children. It has been argued that if we restrict the numbers sufficiently, then this will go hand in hand with the improvement of race relations. But the system does not work like that and it never has done.
Arguments aimed at repatriation or ceasing to allow children to come in will never have the effect of improving race relations, unless control of immigration is seen to be handled sensibly and fairly irrespective of the colour of those involved. Black people who are already in this country and their children—and even their children's children—will see that they are not wanted and are not accepted, but that white immigrants, particularly under the EEC arrangements, are more welcome than they. Strict policies of immigration control have never been related to the whole subject.
The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West dismissed some remarks by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Sydney Chapman) by saying that that hon. Member was a relative newcomer to the problems of immigration and race relations. I am an old-stager in the sphere of race relations. I have lived with this subject and have been interested in these problems for a very long time. I have personally been involved in the education of children whose background or whose parents' background may be different from our own. I have not changed my mind on many of the facts which I have stated over the years. I repeat that if we have fallen down, it has been in the sphere of resources.
The right hon. Gentleman cannot escape the logic of his own argument. I do not put all the blame on any individual or group of individuals. I do not play the numbers game. In respect of the birth rate, did the right hon. Gentleman when Minister of Health not encourage immigrants to come into this country to help us run the National Health Service? Did he not make such appeals to people whose skins are of a different colour from our own? In so doing, did he imagine that they would not have children? Did he imagine that those children would be white? Of course he did not. It is no good implying, as I have heard the right hon. Gentleman imply, that he was never given the correct information and therefore did not understand the situation regarding the numbers of people coming into the country.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) pointed to areas such as my own—Slough, High Wycombe and others—as areas which have escaped some of the graver


difficulties in the aggravation of social problems which immigration has accentuated. There are many reasons for this. This ties in with the comments made by the hon. Member for Handsworth. I do not pretend that we do not have difficulties in my area, because of course we do ; but my area is one in which we are always crying out for labour.
Slough was built up on a demand for labour. The Slough trading estate brought people from Wales, Scotland and Ireland and from other parts of the world to take up work there. There has always been work in Slough. Although we have had a housing problem, there has never been a situation involving the use of large old Victorian houses which have become slums lending themselves to overcrowding and a concentration of people. Because we are an area of this kind, we have escaped many of these problems, although we have some of the same problems which apply to some areas of London, Birmingham and other parts of the Midlands.
It is not the concentration of immigrants by itself that causes problems, except perhaps to the person who has a colour prejudice. What causes problems is the conditions in which people live. Nobody would seriously suggest that the appalling slums in Glasgow are caused because the people who live in them are white. The problems of the slums in Glasgow arise because of bad housing and inadequate accommodation. This has nothing to do with the colour of the people who live there, but arises because of the appalling conditions in the area. Unfortunately, a large number of immigrants and their children have concentrated on areas which are already deprived and inadequate in their housing provision. This is a fact and it is this sort of problem with which we must deal. We must also make sure that no artificial barriers are erected to prevent people from moving out of areas which are already overcrowded and which offer inadequate facilities. This has happened in many cases in respect of immigration.
I believe that for many years to come we shall have to deal with concentrations of people identifiable by their skin, whether or not they are immigrants, in certain areas of our large towns, partly because of the work situation, partly because they cannot afford to move anywhere

else, and partly because many people like to live together. A similar situation arises when white emigrants go abroad. They tend to seek out people whom they know and who come from the same countries and backgrounds.
I do not regard that as alarming. What is alarming is the appalling conditions under which Commonwealth immigrants have to live when they come to this country. In every report of the Select Committee, whether it has dealt with education, housing or the environment, the Committee has called for more resources to deal with some of the very difficult problems, not all of them caused by immigrants, but all of them surrounding the density of immigrants in our deprived areas.
In the second volume of the report on education, for example, there are two comments which interest me greatly. The first occurs in paragraph 12 on page 3 which says that it is not clear why so many West Indian children in London and other areas are concentrated into schools for the educationally subnormal. It makes certain guesses and produces some suggestions. But it says that no one knows why this is. Then on page 91 there is a direct reference to the appalling child-minding conditions and facilities which exist. I believe that the report on housing also refers to this.
Unless we grasp the fact that the day-minding facilities for all children of working mothers in working class areas are appalling, we shall never see any improvement. We have to bear in mind that of 120,000 West Indian mothers with children under five, two-thirds go to work, that we have a third fewer day nursery places today than we had in 1945, and that more mothers are working.
It does not require a great deal of insight into education problems to understand that probably there are more poor working-class children and West Indian working-class children in appalling child-minding conditions in our large cities than anywhere else in the country and that this state of affairs is connected directly with the poor performances and the behavioural problems of West Indian children in many of our schools today. Of course, the same is true of many working-class children at the lower end of the social and economic groupings. I do not


want to over-state the position in terms of West Indian children. However, they tend to live in the poorer areas of our cities because many of their mothers are unsupported and are forced to go to work for that and a variety of other reasons. The conditions under which their children are looked after are damaging them long before they ever get to school.
There was an extremely interesting article on the subject by Brian Jackson in last week's New Society. He goes into these matters in some detail and he writes of what he calls a typical mother in this situation in Manchester :
She has a child and is short of money. She is a woman and almost certainly, in factory terms, unskilled. Probably she is black. If you are an unsupported mother and black, then whether you are mixing chocolates or counting deodorants, you must expect rock-bottom wages. Because money is hard to gain, overtime at double rates is gold. You never say no to work. … To earn … money in that situation (I'm talking of £16–£19 a week) you get up at 5.45 a.m., give a sleepy child a perfunctory and undemanded breakfast … carry him on a cold dawn to a sleepy, illegal minder … catch the 6.30 a.m. bus … clock in your card by 7 a.m.—and are glad to work … till 7 p.m. Pick up the child at a quarter to eight, struggle with the tired tot home, then an impossible supper, and sleep for him. … 
One of my first speeches in this House was about illegal child minding, and I want to repeat today what I said on that occasion. Unless and until the Department of Education and Science and the Department of Health and Social Security get together and decide on a completely different organisation for our pre-school children which does not separate the already disadvantaged away from education into day nurseries and to illegal child minders, the situation will never change.
The small nursery school programme that we have makes no contribution to these children. Part-time nursery education will not help them. Until we sort out this situation and rearrange our preschool opportunities for young children, we shall perpetuate a state of affairs whereby large numbers of poor working-class children, many of whom by definition are black, will start off unequal in our society.
On the basis of what I have seen for myself and the surveys which have been done by others, I am convinced that there is a causal relationship between the number of so-called ESN children in our

schools and the appalling child-minding conditions in which many of these children have existed for a very long time. It is about time that the Secretary of State for Social Services and the Secretary of State for Education and Science got together with a view to sorting out this problem. Until it is done we shall continue to look at it in an isolated fashion, not connecting some of the causes.
There are other causes, of course. Bad housing is one. All sorts of deprivations contribute. But this is one of the causal factors and one that we have not yet managed to deal with. I am very happy that my party has made reference to this in our document dealing with education policy. I believe that all facilities for pre-school children, certainly from the age of three years, should be under the control of the Department of Education and Science. If that is not done, we shall deprive children who have the greatest need of educational stimulus at the age of three or four from having it. I believe that the Department of Education and Science and the Department for Health and Social Security have to get together to consider how they can best improve the situation. We must have more trained registered child minders and additional facilities for women who need to leave their children when they go out to work.
In 1968 the Nursery and Child Minders Act was amended to discourage illegal child minding, and we increased the penalties for such ventures. Since then, there have been five or six prosecutions. That is about all. I do not suggest that prosecutions help. However, much as I supported the amendment of the legislation, I was among those who pointed out at the time that it would fail if we did not increase the facilities for people to leave their children legally. As a result, illegal child minding went on, and it is increasing all the time. We have cut down our day nursery places by one-third. Today we have many more working mothers than we did in 1945, and even then facilities were considered to be inadequate.
We must also look more closely at what is going on in our schools. I take off my hat to the tremendous work done by teachers, often with inadequate resources and with knowledge and understanding that they have gained only as


they have gone along. I salute them for their tremendous work in my constituency and in other parts of the country to deal with language and cultural difficulties and a host of other problems. Out we need a great deal more training. Despite figures given to me about the training of teachers working in multi-racial societies when I was a junior Minister, the amount of training available in our colleges of education is quite inadequate. It is beginning to improve, but it is nothing like what it should be.
There is another point that we must take on board, although in the last two or three years we have improved a little in this regard. Just as working-class children when they go to school, are presented with values that are a little foreign to them because they are usually middle-class values, so children with black or brown skins, with Asian or West Indian backgrounds, when they go to school, are presented with materials—visual aids, primary school readers, and so on—that rarely include them. They are excluded from it. Until we present to our children, both black and white, the real world in which they live and get them to understand that it is multiracial—I do not care whether they are in immigrant areas or not—we shall not convince immigrant children that they are included in our society because everything they see teaches them that they are not included.
A small multiparty working group sits in a kind of ad hoc way here from time to time to discuss this problem. Sometimes we have looked at comics and other material that is available to children. We have been appalled at the almost total exclusion of the black or brown child from so much of our reading and pictorial materials. I believe that the situation has improved over the last year or so. Many experiments are going on in universities and other places to try to get this balance right. I beg the Department of Education and Science to look at the matter and to find out where, for example, one can buy a birthday card for a black child in which he can see himself presented for what he is. These areas have been sadly neglected.
I agree with the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Redmond) that it is a tragedy that people with black or brown skins should be regarded as immigrants and that all immigrants should be regarded

as black people. This is the measure of the failure of our society to present itself as multiracial.
I recall a situation when a young girl, born in this country of West Indian parents, came to help in a nursery with which I was connected. A mother said to her, "Where are you from, dear?" The child, who was about 15, said, in a London accent, "I am from Battersea." "No", said the mother, "where were you born?" The girl said, "I was born in Wolverhampton." The mother said," No, dear. I mean before that." This was a child born and educated in this country. How did she feel?
If we go on in the way that certain people have suggested, immigrants will never feel that they belong, the children of immigrants will never feel that they belong, and the indigenous population will never feel that immigrants' children born and brought up in our society belong here either.
I support the suggestion, accepted by the DES in this connection, that we should change our whole method of collecting statistics on immigrant children with our ten-year definition. I found this pretty useless during the short time that I was at the DES. I would be given a brief about a school and be told that it had 10 per cent. of immigrant children because the ten-year rule applied. Many black children are not immigrants according to the DES. I would go to the school and be told that it had 40 per cent. immigrant children. I would say, "But my brief tells me that it has only 10 per cent., or 12 per cent. immigrant children." The person with whom I was dealing would then look a little blank and say, "Yes, we have 40 per cent. black children here." This system has not been fair in analysing the problem. Nor has it been fair to the children in our schools.
I believe that it is important to redefine deprivation, recognising that it includes a variety of degrees of those who are deprived. It can include the Asian child who is deprived or deficient in language. That is one area of deprivation. It can include poverty, which can apply to both black and white children alike. It can include the inadequate home, which may not necessarily be poor—the home that is deprived in the sense not of poverty but of English culture and customs.
I believe that the problem of the education of immigrant children should now be merged into the whole problem of the education of deprived children generally and that the concept of positive discrimination for all children in need should be applied fully and generously. We should break down the definition of those who are deprived or have special needs into the special needs that they have.
That does not mean that immigrant children are deprived children. They are not. Those born and brought up in this country often are not deprived. But whatever criteria are used to determine deprivation, it is certain that some will apply to a large number of immigrant children and to a substantial number of children of the indigenous population, and all these children, whether black or white, will be found largely, though not exclusively, in certain big industrial areas of this country. If we approach the problem in that way I believe that we shall begin to understand the many facets of deprivation and how we can best deal with the problem.
Great attempts have been made in our schools to avoid any form of discrimination among children. All that can be done has been done in our schools, with one or two exceptions, to try to avoid that discrimination. We all recognise that schools do not exist in a vacuum outside society and that the pressures and attitudes of parents and speeches made by various people in the country play a great part in separating and quickly dividing people into those who have prejudice and those who cannot seem to operate in a multiracial society.
People who came here as immigrants in the 1950s did not expect equal treatment. They regarded themselves as immigrants. But their children and grandchildren, as we are beginning to see, will demand and expect to be treated as equals. That is a perfectly healthy and normal situation. Unless we extend not only our attitudes but resources into these areas—whether for housing, education or whatever it may be—the expectations of those young people will not be fulfilled. If they are not fulfilled we shall be setting the scene for a great deal of trouble in this country. I am not despondent. I hope that the lessons and reports of the Select Committee on which

I served in the early days will be heeded because what they demand is urgent.

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts :

1. Fuel and Electricity (Control) Act 1973.
2. Edinburgh Corporation (No. 2) Order Confirmation Act 1973.

IMMIGRATION AND RACE RELATIONS

Question again proposed, That this House do now adjourn.

8.18 p.m.

Mr. John Wilkinson: This is a good time to have a race relations debate. I had thought it was a time when there was no particular controversy affecting race relations and immigration. The Pakistan Act was safely on the statute book and it appeared from first figures that the Immigration Act 1971 was going well. Then my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) added an electric note of tension to the debate. But now we have had a thoughtful contribution, if somewhat lengthy, by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor), whose speech was well-informed and well researched.
I should like particularly to comment on the way the Home Secretary set the debate in its context. My right hon. Friend should once and for all have laid the ghost that has been stalking these corridors, if not the country, of the hordes of people who are still coming into Britain. I think he clearly showed beyond controversy that the intention of the Immigration Act, as declared in the Conservative Party's manifesto in 1970, has been maintained in that there have been substantial falls in the numbers of admissions since the introduction of that legislation.
In particular, over the past three years the number of admissions of heads of families has dropped by two-thirds. This


is the most important category ; my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was quite right to make that clear. Also, over the past six years—I am afraid we cannot claim that the Immigration Act 1971 was responsible for this—the admission of dependants has dropped by just under two-thirds. In the number of total admissions over the past three years, there has been a reduction of about 30 per cent. Right across the board, therefore, there has been a curtailment of immigration, as the 1970 Conservative Party manifesto said would be the intention of the Immigration Act.
The Select Committee fulfils a particularly useful purpose. We are all very much aware, I think, of the family nature of immigrant settlement in the United Kingdom. If I were to take my right hon. and hon. Friends to my own city, I could show them clearly defined areas of settlement, areas which are particularly Bengali, others that are Gujerati, others which are Sikh, others that are Kashmiri and West Pakistani, and so on. In the United Kingdom the same pattern manifests itself nationwide. Certain areas are Sikh and some are West Indian, like Slough and other places.
It is only through the Select Committee that this House gets an overall national picture and can put into perspective the particularities of the local situation which individual Members may have learned from their own constituencies. It is especially important that the Select Committee should coninue to do its work, because it bridges the gulf which already exists in all too many people's minds between the legislators and the governed. The general public often believe that it is as if there are two nations in the State—those who live and work in the multicultural communities of our big industrial cities and those who plan and pass the laws which regulate their existence—with the soundest intentions no doubt but perhaps, in the eyes of the general public, with very little apparent practical first-hand experience of the situation.
The Select Committee lays that ghost as well, because it shows that the legislators not only understand their own patch but also go out into the country to get a nationwide impression of the scene. I

am particularly pleased also that the Home Secretary made a particular point of coming to Bradford just after the Uganda Asian issue exploded on the political scene, and his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has recently been to my constituency.
I do not think that the basic issue of citizenship has yet been tackled. We have heard from the Home Office that a review is being conducted into this matter, but I do not know what has happened to it. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary can tell us. This is important. Those who were involved in the passage of the Bangladesh and Pakistan Bills, particularly the latter, in the last Session, will realise how important this issue is. It has an implicit importance from the point of view of immigration control for United Kingdom and colonies passport holders ; it could, at least notionally, have one.
More importantly, the anomaly that exists most transparently was drawn to our attention by the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Bidwell), who mentioned the fact that Commonwealth citizens can come here on work permits to work on a temporary basis yet, because they are Commonwealth citizens, and although they are here for only a temporary period, they enjoy the full rights of citizenship as British subjects in the exercise of the franchise.
I have always believed that it was wrong to draw distinctions in this way between Commonwealth citizens and other immigrants.
This error is highlighted further by the situation over Pakistan nationals. It was highlighted over many years by the situation of East European nationals who came in, perhaps, a generation or so ago and who still cannot enjoy the franchise, whereas Commonwealth citizens, many of whom now will be coming in for only a short time to work, will continue to be able to vote as they did previously. It is high time that the Home Office addressed itself to this problem.
On the matter of statistics, it always amazes me that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West claims that he is the only person who somehow saw the light on the 10-year rule and the application of Depart


ment of Education and Science statistics to the immigrant child. There are many areas of the country—my own borough of Bradford is one—where we have a much more liberal definition of the immigrant child and as a result have been able to introduce much more positive policies for solving the language problem in particular.
In this regard, I have always welcomed the language reception centre scheme which we have operated in my part of Yorkshire for many years. It offers widespread advantages which could be copied by other local education authorities. It ensures that the special skills to which the hon. Member for Eton and Slough rightly referred can be brought to bear where they are most needed—that is, to make the immigrant child aware of the English scene, English culture, the English pattern of behaviour and life and, above all, the English language before he is thrown into the school system.
Without that or some similar system, there is a grave danger that not only will English schoolchildren suffer but the immigrant children will never catch up. So this is a very important scheme which we have operated in Bradford. It is a pity that the Select Committee could not visit the county borough—I understand why it could not—but I am glad that it will come this Session. This example could be followed more widely. The proposals of the Secretary of State for Education and Science in the White Paper "Framework for Expansion", the emphasis on nursery education in particular, will help, but more still needs to be done, particularly in relation to child-minding and so on.
I am also a believer in dispersal. This is a contentious issue which emphasises again the difference between different localities. In my locality it works well on the whole. There are stresses and strains, tensions and great difficulties ; I appreciate that. Not only do many immigrant parents resent the fact that their children cannot go to the neighbourhood school, but many English parents who have children in what would otherwise be all-white schools find immigrant children in their midst. None the less, on balance, to keep the proportions

reasonable, I think that the system can be more widely followed than it is.
In the area of police-immigrant relations and community relations per se, I welcome the fact that more money is going to the deprived areas, especially an extra £6 million which was due to go to Uganda. This will be very glad tidings for those who were apprehensive about the reception of Ugandan refugees into this country. The funny thing is—I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will confirm this—that the money will go to the "red" areas which did not in the first instance look like getting so many Gujarati and other Ugandan Asians. That is how matters are turning out. The areas which need the money most will be getting it, which is good Conservative practice.
As regards dependants, I have tried to answer the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) about the Pakistani situation. If one looks at the Pakistani picture, one finds that there has been a very dramatic fall in the numbers of dependants. In 1969, the last full year under the previous administration for which we have statistics, the number of people coming in on work permits from Pakistan was 482, while in 1972 the figure was 75. So the number of heads of families who have been admitted is greatly reduced, and the number of dependants has dropped in the same period from 11,880 to 5,476.
I know that there are very long queues and there is immense pressure at our embassy in Pakistan but the total number of dependants coming from India presents a much more serious situation in the sense that there are more coming in and the percentage drop of dependants from India is far less substantial. But in my own area of Bradford the pressure of dependants is declining and, on current projections, should continue to do so.
I believe that when looking at police-immigrant relations it is right to bring the family background into the picture, and in many instances that is the great difference between the Asians and the West Indians. The West Indian situation is one of far less stable families, whereas families are right at the centre of Indian and Pakistani culture. So that when looking at dependants one must recognise


that having a stable family background will make young people much less likely to be at odds with the police. This is a factor which should be brought out when people argue against the admission of any dependants. Part of the reason why relations between Asians and the police have been so good is that they are now establishing stable family relationships in the United Kingdom.
Funnily enough, the aims of the immigrant community are essentially bourgeois. They are the aims which my own party traditionally espouses—to buy a home, to save, to establish a business and, if possible, to send their children to a grammar school ; in other words, to make the most of their opportunities. It is important that those opportunities should be equal. That principle lies at the very heart of the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.
I was deeply shocked by the apocalyptic tone of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, particularly when he talked about the young people in our society and the under-25s, because on the whole I find them admirable people whether they come from the English community, the Pakistani community or whatever it is. Of course, there are exceptions and there are those who let their fellows down. I wish that my right hon. Friend had reminded the House of the television programme about the soldiers of the Royal Greenjackets serving in Ulster, which I believe was shown on Tuesday night, in which there was a young West Indian man sharing the dangers, the burdens and the responsibilities of his fellows in total equality. That reminded me of the visit I made to the Commonwealth cemetery in Singapore, to which I referred in the Standing Committee on the Pakistan Bill. Walking down the lines of graves, I felt as if I were out canvassing in my own constituency. There is much in our history that binds us to Commonwealth immigrants, but it is much more important that we tackle the problems of the future realistically, constructively and positively. That is my aim, and I know that it is the aim of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

8.33 p.m.

Mr. Guy Barnett: I am glad to follow the hon. Member for

Bradford, West (Mr. Wilkinson) as a fellow member of the Select Committee. In doing so I recall the close attention to detail which he has shown as a relatively new member of the Committee, as indeed I am myself.
I think the hon. Member will agree that this has been a valuable debate, and I would even include the speech of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell). It has been so valuable that it is perhaps a reflection on this House that, to my knowledge, it is the first debate we have had on reports of this Select Committee. But it is perhaps a pity that this is, as it were, an omnibus debate in which the Home Secretary has, quite properly, concentrated his attention on immigration matters and in which a whole range of subjects has been raised.
I want to concentrate my attention on the recent report on education, for two reasons : first, because that was the report which I followed right the way through as a member of the Select Committee ; and secondly, because before becoming a Member of the House I was primarily concerned with education in the work I was doing.
I want first to look at the politics of race relations. Some hon. Members in the debate have referred to this matter, but it is important that we establish the fact that up to date, or, to be more precise, up to the publication of the Select Committee's report, there were broadly two points of view taken by the great majority of people in politics and outside them on the subject of race relations. First there is the point of view that we heard from the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West which I will not attempt to summarise. The second, however, is the view which, to a greater or lesser degree, has been held by a great majority of people concerned with race relations. This view has been one in which we have attempted to play down the issues, to pretend sometimes that there were no problems, to be anxious about the facts of the situation and the statistics becoming too well known ; and to be pushed constantly by public opinion and by the warnings that came from the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West and others of the dangers of an increase in immigration into this country.
Ever since immigration into Britain began, the liberals have been on the defensive the whole time, being pushed gradually to greater and greater restriction of immigration, because of the arguments which came from the grass roots and the warnings which came from people like the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. This is an unsatisfactory situation and one which I deplore.
One of the reasons why I was glad to be a member of the Select Committee, glad to support its recommendations and glad that it came up honestly and clearly with what it saw the situation to be, was that I thought this might be the watershed, the beginning of recognition by all of us, whatever view we may take about race relations, that if we are to have a serious, sensible policy on race relations, whether it refers to housing, education or anything else, we must have the facts absolutely clear. The facts should not be in dispute, as so often they have been in the past. In a sense, therefore, I would say that if the result of the campaign of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, Southwest has been that at long last we are beginning to face the facts, perhaps that is a benefit which has come from his campaign though possibly his motives for that campaign differ largely from mine.
It seems very odd that those of us who are anxious to build a multiracial society in Britain and anxious for the resources which have been mentioned in the debate should have been so much on the defensive. If we were anxious to have more resources devoted to items such as language training in our schools and to the sort of problems that are faced by immigrant families, it seems that we should have welcomed the facts on immigration and the public knowledge that the Select Committee has put before the House. These are arguments for devoting larger resources to the problems which arise as a consequence of immigration. We should welcome them instead of attempting to play down the consequences and very largely, therefore, failing to obtain the resources that we need.
I have never believed since I have been in politics that anyone ever wins a political argument by attempting to neglect or to suppress such facts as exist. It is right that we bring out the facts, whatever the consequences may be. Only by doing

that, by building a case on the information that we have, have we any hope of obtaining the resources that we need to do the job. One of the arguments, however, for not producing the facts, for playing them down, is that if we bring out the facts we only increase the amount of racialism and make the feeling of tension greater than it otherwise would be. Experience in this country does not bear that out.
We state in the report :
To pretend that they do not exist can only serve the cause of those who wish to see race relations reach a state of explosion.
That sentence comes in paragraph 20 of the report. As far as I know, it is the only place in the report where we use the word "explosion".
It is interesting to note some of the Press comments on the Select Committee's report. Many of the newspapers which commented on it seized on the word "explosion". For example, The Guardian stated :
MPs foresee racial explosion".
We did no such thing. What we stated was that we did not want to serve the cause of those who wished to see race relations reach a state of explosion, which is rather different. The Yorkshire Post stated :
Britain warned about race explosion risk".
Those were not the words of the report. They were a travesty of what we said.
Those examples illustrate the racially charged atmosphere in which the report was published. That atmosphere was in part due to the fact that for years we have attempted to play down the facts of the situation. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West mentioned statistics, as he frequently does. Another type of newspaper headline which we got after the report was :
MPs say figures being faked".
This is all an indication that, as a consequence of not placing the facts squarely before the country, we probably lose rather than gain.
Hon. Members have referred to Liverpool. I was one of the members of the Select Committee who visited Liverpool. I was depressed by what I saw there. It is a city in which there is racial tension.


and the chairman of the education committee told the Committee that the situation was
in danger of getting worse
What previous speakers have not mentioned is the interesting contrast between Liverpool and Bolton. I was enormously encouraged by Bolton. The great contrast between the two cities is that immigration into Liverpool has been long term while in Bolton it is a recent phenomenon. In Liverpool little has been done, and little attempt appears to have been made over the years to tackle the problem. Because of the very suddenness and size of immigration into Bolton, action was taken immediately. I imagine that it was seen by the education committee as an emergency situation demanding emergency action.
We saw some exciting developments in Bolton. We saw, for instance, a reception centre for primary children with 12 well qualified teachers all doing a first-class job. We also saw English being taught in a comprehensive school. This was being done within the school and thus had its own advantages. The specialists in English language teaching were going into lessons on English, domestic science and other subjects, reminding the teachers of those subjects that they were also teachers of English. That was a particularly important benefit as a result of the language work being done in the school. The contrast between Liverpool and Bolton needs to be specially marked by the Department of Education and Science.
In travelling round the country, the Select Committee gained a general impression of enormous variation between one area and another in the kind of resources that were being put into the job and the success which was being achieved, as a result, from the work being done. Ultimately that reflects to a degree upon the Department of Education and Science.
It is little short of extraordinary that for years the Department has been collecting statistics which it appears to have recognised were useless. The Secretary of State told us when she gave evidence to the Committee, as we see at paragraph 1224 of the evidence, that

My Department makes no use of them whatsoever except to publish them. They do not form the basis of any grant from my department.
It is extraordinary that for all those years the statistics were collected and that when she was asked why the Department went on collecting them the right hon. Lady said that if it did not collect them the allegation might be made that
we were trying to conceal something that had prevously been revealed".
That illustrates the defensive attitude taken by so many people to the problems of race relations.
There are one or two things the Department must take seriously. First, we make a recommendation about the need for an immigrant advisory unit within the Department. We were amazed to discover that no such unit existed. It is little wonder that so little guidance and leadership have been given by the Department in that sphere.
There is one matter that does not appear in the report but must be mentioned because it is important. This country has an immense educational capital in the number of people who have worked on contracts overseas in developing countries or as volunteers teaching in schools. In doing that work they have had to learn how to teach English as a second language. How little have we capitalised on all that experience! It is extraordinary that for years the Overseas Development Administration, or the Overseas Development Ministry before it, has never made available the information it could have made available about the many contract teachers who have worked overseas and could have had an important rôle in our schools if they had been given the proper encouragement to go there. They possess skills that are vitally needed in this important subject of English language teaching to which the Select Committee has drawn attention.
I have criticised the Department of Education and Science. Thank goodness we were not entirely dependent on it. Thank goodness there are plenty of power centres running right the way through out education system. We have them in the local education authorities. Among those we saw, I found Leicester and Bolton outstanding in that respect. We have power centres also in the shape of our teachers.
I want to mention in particular one body that gave evidence to us, the Association for the Education of Pupils from Overseas, now renamed the National Association for Multi-Racial Education. It is not just a band of teachers who happen to have a cause. It is a group of teachers who, because they have had no assistance from anywhere else, to begin with at any rate, have banded together and worked out schemes of work to cope with a situation no one had told them how to cope with. They hold first-class conferences designed to assist teachers in the work they need to do in multi-racial schools. I spoke at one of their conferences at Edgehill College of Education.
It is a great shame that the Department of Education and Science has taken away the association's small grant of £500 a year. In view of the value of the work the association is doing, one of the first things the Department should do is to step up the assistance to it. The association's work is vital. The initiative of the teachers concerned and the expertise they already possess, which does not exist in many other parts of the country, should not be lightly thrown away or neglected.
Many hon. Members may have read in the Sunday Times of a project I know well at Harambee House, Islington which is run by Brother Herman. Some of these black projects, if that is how I may describe them, are doing first-class work, and anyone who reads that Sunday Times article will see the realities of the work which is being done.
There are many projects, a great number of them in London but some in other parts of the country as well. I hope that the Home Secretary will try to ensure that money from urban aid is channelled direct to such projects to give them encouragement. I know that this has already been suggested today. These projects, however, are doing something to try to restore the confidence and self-respect of the new immigrant communities that have settled here.

8.51 p.m.

Mr. Norman Fowler: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Guy Barnett). Perhaps I may use the first 10 seconds of my 10 minutes to say how sad it is that some hon. Members have spoken for 27 or 25 minutes which has had the effect

of excluding from the debate my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair).
There are too many debates on this general subject in which we hear a great deal about immigration policy and not enough about race relations. Today's debate has been an exception to that. From the outset we should recognise the one simple fact that this country has to face serious questions of race relations. Whatever changes we make in future immigration policy, whatever kind of repatriation scheme we introduce, there will still be a substantial coloured population in Britain.
Many coloured people have lived in this country for many years and many were born here. I take a very restrictive view on immigration policy but it would be wrong and we would be deceiving ourselves to think that future immigration policy would solve the present problems. We must face up to the problems of the present and the future which are created by race relations.
There is one other fact to note. There is a very close connection—and here I disagree with the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor) who I regret is not here now after her long speech—between immigration policy and race relations. To put it at its most obvious there will be clear resentment in the home population if too many newcomers are allowed into the country.
What matters here is what the public feel on this question. I suggest that this is not something peculiar to this country. It is a fact of life in Europe as well—even in a country such as Holland. There are two areas I should like to deal with before I come to my general remarks about race relations. In these areas immigration policy and race relations are connected. The first of them, touched upon in the report, is illegal immigration. The very fact of illegal immigration damages immigration policy because it makes that policy seem absurd.
However, the even greater damage is that it help to poison relations by creating an atmosphere of suspicion which harms no one more than those who came to this country legally. It is sometimes claimed that illegal immigration is not a big problem. I say only that this is not the view of the police or immigration officers who have to combat it.
One of my abiding memories of visits to Asia—and the hon. Member for Coventry, South (Mr. William Wilson) is a great expert on the subject—is the enormous pressure upon the immigration officers in those Asian countries. It is necessary only to look at the figures in the report we produced, particularly in connection with the office in Islamabad, to see the scale of the difficulty. The pressure caused by attempts at illegal immigration is enormous. I was sad to hear what the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) said about the Islamabad office and about the discourtesy shown there by the immigration officers. I do not think that that view would have been shared by any of the Members who went on the Select Committee's visit to Pakistan.
Some people claim that we would counter the difficulty by introducing identity cards of some kind. I do not agree. I have no fundamental objection, but I simply do not think that that would be an effective policy. Anyone who thinks that it would be has only to look at the situation in France where there is a system of identity cards but where illegal immigration still continues.
A much more hopeful and realistic approach to the problem is to tackle it at the source, at the point of work, and to make meaningful checks on national insurance cards. I was, therefore, very glad to hear the announcement my right hon. Friend the Secretary of Sate for Social Services made on this very question. What concerns me is that according to reports I am now receiving this scheme, although announced in the House, is either not in force or is only partly in force. My view is that such a scheme is both sensible and realistic, and I should very much like to know what the state of play with it now is.
I accept that the entire answer to the problem does not lie in this country. It is not unrealistic of us to expect that the countries of source also tackle this problem of illegal immigration into this country. I have a very clear recollection of going to the emigration office in one of these countries and looking out of the window of the crowded office where the emigration officers were under enormous pressure and seeing only a few hundred

yards away the tents of people providing equipment and documents for illegal immigration into this country. It is not unrealistic, therefore, for us to ask for more co-operation to overcome what I am sure both sides of the House regard as a cruel, nasty and disgusting trade.
The second point I want to make, although I must do so very briefly, is that there is a relation between immigration policy and race relations and dependants. We should be in no doubt about what is happening at the moment. If young people come into this country and do not have a full-time education the result will be that we shall be condemning them to be the second-class citizens of the future ; they will become the equivalent of foreign labour in Europe.
Lastly, I would draw attention to the very valuable part of the report touching on race relations and the police, as did the right hon. Member for Stechford. We must recognise that the police are the obvious representatives of our society and in this matter of race relations they have a very heavy responsibility indeed. Let me say straight away that they discharge that responsibility very well. The responses from the coloured communities vary enormously. The response from the Asian community is far more friendly and helpful than the response from the West Indian community, particularly the young West Indians.
We face one difficulty which the right hon. Gentleman did not touch upon and that is, as became clear from our travels, that there are some people who are prepared to exploit the difficulties there are. It would be unrealistic for us not to face that. The police should not try to concentrate upon countering those people. By all means counter them in argument, but they are not likely to be won over. The police should concentrate on winning the middle ground in the immigrant communities, those among the coloured population who are not at the extremes. It is not an unrealistic goal in any sense.
The general relations between the police and the public in this country are certainly the envy of Europe, of the European police forces and, I suspect, of police forces all over the world. The police depend on public co-operation but this is a changing thing and not something which remains static or which can be taken for granted.
Obviously, new situations arise. One new situation is that of the coloured minority. The police must develop policies and techniques and, particularly, the new complaints system which is being introduced. Many people would accept that the police in this country are fair in their dealings with the public at large.
I have had perforce to be brief, but I have made various points and would appreciate an answer from the Under-Secretary of State, particularly about national insurance cards. But the Government's general approach on immigration and on race relations is the right one and it deserves support.

9.2 p.m.

Mr. John Fraser: I hope that I shall not be regarded as churlish in saying that I am not entirely happy with the title accorded to the debate. Immigration has less and less relevance—I would not say no relevance—to the subject of race relations. Race relations is the matter of overwhelming importance.
I was disappointed that out of a speech of 48 minutes only 10 minutes was spent by the Home Secretary on talking about race relations and the other 38 minutes talking not about immigration but about immigration from the Commonwealth. A casual glance at the latest quarterly immigration figures shows that if immigration has any importance, it includes not just immigration from the Commonwealth but equally immigration of people who are aliens, people who, unlike the West Indians, speak no English.
The Home Secretary gave us figures of a reduction in a comparable nine-month period from 3,924 immigrants from the Commonwealth in 1970 to 1,055 in 1973. That seems to pale into insignificance when one examines the same figures of foreign immigration to this country during a period of only three months. During the three months ended September, 6,048 foreign nationals who do not speak English came here, 3,584 for more than 12 months, plus 2,886 EEC nationals. Other figures are available in the Library. One cannot talk of Commonwealth immigration in perspective without these figures. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will do just that.
The paramount issue is that of race relations. Racialism is a disease rather than an accurate weapon. Once it starts spreading, it affects not only the people the disease is aimed at—if one can aim a disease—but all inside our community.
Race relations concern 1½ million coloured people in the United Kingdom, their dignity, their rights and their duties as citizens, their hopes and expectations in what is a closely-knit and interdependent society. Just because we are an interdependent and a largely urban society, race relations are not about the needs of coloured people, but the degree of tolerance, harmony and understanding between all people—black, brown and white—in this nation. As one community relations officer put it to me, acidly but truly, race relations are about different races in the same community sharing the same kind of inequality. If there is no parity between identifiable segments of our community when they live and work with other segments in the community, it is all of us in the end who will suffer.
Anyone who doubts the proposition that race relations matter to the whole community has to look not at Southern Africa, or at the civil war in a Portuguese colony or at a sprawling American city, but across St. George's Channel to the situation in Northern Ireland, where we see the harm done to the whole community when discrimination becomes endemic over a number of years. Britain is an incontestably multiracial society, and what matters to all of us, black and while, is that it should be a harmonious society. Race relations are of crucial importance to the quality of life of all our inhabitants, no matter what their colour.
Perhaps there is a selfish reason for achieving good community relations. But if there were no reasons of self-interest I would still regard it as an unavoidable moral challenge to preserve equal treatment under the law, which largely we have, and equal treatment in practice, which largely we do not have. I think I speak for all my right hon. and hon. Friends and for very many people outside the House as well in supporting this proposition.
I get particularly gloomy when I listen to the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell). Sometimes we all get gloomy about the prospects for race relations in this country, but when we do we should be heartened by the kind of contributions made in the debate today, by the work of the all-party Select Committee and by the very great good will of all the major political parties—there are exceptions among the smaller ones—by the Churches, by the voluntary organistions and by, not least, people whose attitude towards race relations becomes more and more dedicated the more they come into contact with immigrant communities.
In going round schools and other institutions I am increasingly struck by the fact that people who may have had some degree of prejudice before they started teaching and had contact with immigrant communities find themselves in that situation becoming more and more dedicated to achieving proper and good racial harmony throughout the country.
It is bad enough that we have a society already where children especially, in the words of "Born to Fail", suffer adversity after adversity heaped upon them even before birth. How much worse is it that children particularly should have another adversity, that of colour, placed upon them. It is bad enough that wealth and power and class both illustrate and reproduce too often in their own image inequality which Socialists and others find unacceptable. It is even worse when the adversity of discrimination is added to all these other inequalities.
I want to turn for a moment to immigration, which I believe is only one adjunct of race relations policies. Here I want to comment on the speech made by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. He, of course, carried his speech far beyond immigration. He used an euphemism about uniting families the other way round. I suppose he might also use the euphemism "Reverse migration".
I shall not argue numbers with the right hon. Gentleman. He did not spell out numbers clearly. He gave us one figure, his estimate of a 2 million coloured population. I point out to him that from

1961 to 1971, a period of fairly heavy immigration of all types, the total population of the country increased by only 1,670,000, although he put the coloured population as being 2 million at the end of that period.
Numbers, however, are not important. Many of our quarrels with the right hon. Gentleman are that his objection to immigration and his concern and worry are about race and about colour. That is the classic racialist. I do not use the word in the vituperative sense, but it is racialism, treating people because of their ethnic background and colour as being different and deserving of different treatment. To use the word "colour" without qualification stigmatises the kind of child mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor), the kind of girl who comes from Battersea, who was born in Wolverhampton and who happens to be coloured. To treat that kind of person as being someone different is racialism.
The right hon. Gentleman is eloquent, intelligent and experienced. What I find so sad is that he has so little to say about achieving good race relations. He does so little and says so little to redress the effect of some of his words. The right hon. Gentleman and I and many others represent multiracial constituencies. We all regard it as being our duty to say and do things which will make relations inside our constituencies more harmonious. Many of us work on the reasonable assumption that a large coloured population, say 1,500,000 to 2 million, is a permanent feature. We recognise the reality of that and we try as constituency Members to achieve harmony.
Therefore, immigration is only an adjunct of race relations. Just as important, if not more so, are the kind of things that the Select Committee has been discussing—housing, education, civil liberties, employment and training. We have to stop talking about coloured people, about black people as being immigrants. As the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Redmond) said, it is a misuse of the English language. The people who read about immigration know exactly what is intended : that it is a debate about black and coloured people, and it is about time we stopped talking about coloured people as being immigrants.
The word "immigrant" for many refers to an historical fact. For half a million coloured people in this country the word "immigrant" is totally inaccurate because they were born here and they are part of a new generation of black British. In my view it is not the regulation of entry into the country that matters and is objectionable ; it is whether the operation of control is done in a fair and unbiased manner so that it does not have a backlash effect inside the community here. There are one or two areas where the operation of immigration policy exacerbates poor race relations. When the Government introduced their last set of immigration rules and the concept of grand-patriality, they produced such an adverse effect.
If entry to this country is to be built upon links, I can tell the Minister that the links between Jamaica and this country are far longer established than any of those between this country and Australia and New Zealand. The family links in my constituency between the United Kingdom and Jamaica are far greater in number than those between Commonwealth countries and the United Kingdom. We ought not to discriminate as between one Commonwealth country and another. The grand-patriality clause had a backlash effect, as does the use of retrospective legislation.
I do not deny for one moment the necessity to stamp out illegal immigration That is absolutely right. Such immigration is bad for race relations. Equally, I believe that the introduction of retrospective legislation—to use the words of another place, achieved by "labyrinthian verbiage"—also has an adverse effect. So do police raids to find illegal immigrants and the demanding of passports from people long established in this country. I hope that, in framing legislation, law, rules and practice procedure, the Government will have some regard to the adverse effect which these can have upon well-established and sometimes British-born communities.

Mr. Wilkinson: Would the hon. Gentleman's party, if in Government, amend the 1971 Immigration Act to delete the retrospective provision, or would it draft a totally new Act?

Mr. Fraser: I will not be drawn into setting forth a draft of a new Immigration

Act. My hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) and others of my right hon. and hon. Friends made clear in a motion dealing with illegal immigration and debated in the House what our position was. If the hon. Gentleman refers to that motion, he will see that the matter is set out formally. All that is necessary is to declare an amnesty for all those who came in before the Immigration Act 1971 received the Royal Assent—that is to say, before 31st December 1971. I will not be drawn further on that.
I turn to another way in which immigration affects race relations and about which concern has been expressed on both sides of the House. Concern was expressed by the Select Committee in the education report which makes clear that, the longer the entry of children to the United Kingdom is delayed, the greater the problems of learning English as a second language and the greater the problems of some West Indian children learning standard English. The problem of catching up is referred to in paragraphs 204 and 231 of the report on coloured school leavers, and I support what is said there.
That report did not distinguish between the late arrival child who comes with his parents and the late arrival child who comes long after the parents have settled here. A child who has spent some years in a Commonwealth country and who comes to join his parents who are established here is met with the shock of the language change, a change of environment and a change of culture. What is more, he suffers a fracture of emotional ties with his foster-parents or substitute parents in his own country and, in addition, the task of building new emotional bonds with his natural parents in this country. That transition can be an enormous task which makes great demands on a child's intelligence and emotional resources.
Parents must be encouraged to have their children join them as soon as possible in a child's life. Secondly, administrative delays in children coming to join their parents should be eliminated, and in the allocation of entry certificates preference should be given to families that come as a single unit and do not have to endure long periods of separation.
The Government have before them 152 recommendations from four Select Committee reports and a good deal of other advice. It is possible to be overwhelmed by advice on how to achieve good community relations. We should be guided by four factors. First, the central enemy is racialism. If there were no racialism, we should not have to consider all these reports. Racialism is a deeply engrained habit. Even in the writings of Rousseau there are passages in "Education and Emile" about the inferiority of coloured people. That is the first thing that must be attacked.
Secondly, we must remember that many coloured people share the problems of a deprived white community and that the presence of coloured minorities illustrates rather than creates problems which are attributed to immigration. Those problems are shared to a greater or lesser degree by black people and white people. They share the canker of poor housing, multiple accommodation and homelessness. They share the inadequacies in the education system, the need for nursery education, the problem of illegal child minding to which my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough referred and the lack of play space. We should not imagine for one moment that squalor and colour are necessarily linked together. They are not.
If all the statistics concerning coloured children in schools were published, one would see that many affluent private schools achieve a majority coloured intake. It is wrong always to equate colour and deprivation. Equally, deprivation is often shared by white counterparts. It is illustrated by immigration to this country.
Thirdly, we must stop treating ethnic minorities as homogeneous units. There are wide differences between Caribbean immigrants and Asian immigrants. They must be treated as individual units and the people themselves as individuals.
The fourth principle is that in so many debates, including this one, we talk about these matters in the absence of those who are most concerned—namely, the black people. For example, the Select Committee recommends that in some cases there should be dispersal. Whether that is right or wrong can only be settled ultimately when we begin to take the

views of black and coloured people. We should be wary about coming to conclusions when the people most concerned cannot take part in the debate.
Equally, black people and coloured people have a considerable duty to assert leadership. They must not expect all the answers to come from us. We need leadership from the coloured community on black people joining the police. We need leadership concerning the duties of parents to their children in schools. Whilst we should not be arrogant, and whilst we should take proper account of their views, we must demand that they put forward their views.
I now turn to the recommendations of the Race Relations Board. It is important that the Government should amend the Race Relations Act 1968. First, it would be symbolic. The Conservative Opposition voted against the Race Relations Bill in 1968. It would be effective if the Government were now to demon-state their willingness to accept the advice of the Race Relations Board to amend the Act. That would have symbolic significance.

Mr. Bidwell: There was mixed feeling in the Conservative Party. I think my hon. Friend is wrong to suggest that the official position of the Opposition in 1968 was one of opposition.

Mr. Fraser: I think that the Second Reading of the 1968 Bill was voted against by the official Conservative Opposition.

Mr. Powell: Yes.

Mr. Fraser: They did not vote against it on Third Reading but they did so on Second Reading.
The Race Relations Board has found that discrimination is not likely to be attacked or discovered on the basis of individual complaints. The board suggests—and I agree—that to complain is not a natural phenomenon. Secondly, it suggests that a complainant frequently experiences delay. Thirdly, the board suggests that a complainant receives no general monetary compensation. It may well be that he will be humiliated if his complaint is not upheld. In using the complaints procedure, we expect individuals to show a great deal of perception and courage.
We must recognise that discrimination and racialism are collective matters which far too often are passively accepted. They cannot be rooted out only by individuals putting forward their complaints. The board emphasised that in its 1971 report. It reiterated the point in its latest report. It recommends that it be given powers to investigate where no individual acts of discrimination are suspected. The board considers that it should have the power to investigate on its own initiative. It quotes as an example the Factories Acts, and suggests that prevention is a much better way of dealing with the matter than to wait for complaints from individuals.
The board believes that it should have the power to obtain information. Unless it has that power, it is impossible to monitor the degree of discrimination which may take place in private industry. Other proposed amendments have been referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins).
Further, I believe that the Government could write in a fair employment clause. That suggestion was spelt out in the Select Committee's reports. It could be written into Government contracts that local authorities should be encouraged to write in fair employment clauses and to monitor the contracts and adopt a much more positive attitude towards ensuring that discrimination does not take place in employment.
We should also seek to ensure that there are proper promotion prospects for coloured people. It is not just the refusal of a job that hurts. It is the fact that coloured people are often stratified in one particular job on a night shift or in one section of a factory. It is very difficult for coloured people in a job who do not get promotion. I hope that there will be a fair employment census to go into these matters, and I urge the Government to ensure that there will be equal opportunities. I also urge my comrades in the trade union movement to monitor employment and promotion opportunities for coloured people.
In terms of both housing and education a great many coloured children, though not all, face social problems which are different in severity as between one part of the country and another. The coloured population is disproportionately

involved in the crisis in our cities. The coloured population is not the only section of the population that is vulnerable in this way. The programme of urban renewal has been pursued without a proper appreciation of the problems which both coloured people and white people will face.
I was amazed at Question Time to hear the Home Secretary say that a Conservative Government had managed to build more prisons than a Labour Government had done. I only wish that the Secretary of State for the Environment would come to the House to say that more houses were being built in our city centres and that more money was being devoted to urban renewal. But if the Home Secretary followed the example of the Secretary of State for the Environment, he would be more likely to come to the House to ask for improvement grants for prisons.
I should like to pick up some recommendations which I believe should be implemented. I agree with the ending of the collection of immigrant statistics about schoolchildren, and the argument on this score has been well made out. But it is important that we should have some method of assessing deprivation in terms of children, whatever their colour. I believe that there should be an index, or some other method, to assess the need to teach English as a second language or to teach standard English to children who come from patois backgrounds. We must pursue a policy of positive discrimination in this respect to give people equal opportunities.
Proposals for special training of teachers with a special awareness of these problems should be pursued by the Department of Education and Science. I find it remarkable that the Department has no immigration advisory unit. We must provide curricula more relevant to children whose parents came from different backgrounds from our own. We also need to review thoroughly cultural and class bias in our curricula and literature. I hope that the Department of Education and Science will bring pressure on examining boards to bring in more examinations on the lines of Mode 3 CSE. Perhaps there could be a Mode 3 "O" level examination to enable teaching to be more meaningful and relevant in these circumstances.
I hope that there will also be an investigation into the situation involving West Indian children being placed in schools for the educationally subnormal. There should be an inquiry to identify the link in respect of poor language performance, behavioural problems and what is now described as educational subnormality. West Indian children are frequently stigmatised by being sent to schools for the subnormal. What we need to stigmatise is the method of teaching applied to these children. There is nothing wrong with the children. What is wrong is the education system itself.
I turn to the subject of urban aid. I agreed wholeheartedly when the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) said that we were not matching the task we face with adequate resources. The increases mentioned by the Home Secretary are extremely welcome, but the provision of an extra £2 million or £3 million a year does not in the slightest match the problems of educational deprivation or of urban renewal—problems which face people whatever their colour. The resources have to be very much greater than they are at present. It is important that they should be applied now.
We have many young coloured children in our schools who face educational disadvantage—a greater proportion of black children than white children as a percentage of their respective populations. Unless we apply the resources now we shall find the cost of remedying inadequacies in our system very much more later.
This has been a wide-ranging debate. The most important feature to come out of it has been the expression of great good will and of good intentions to achieve better community relations. We ask the Government to do a great deal. I have mentioned only a fraction of what we should like them to do. But it is not enough simply to ask them to do more. It is not enough to ask their agencies and institutions to do more. There is a responsibility on us all individually to achieve better community relations in our speeches and in our work in our constituencies and in this House. There is also a great responsibility upon each political party to do this. By recruiting immigrants and members of

ethnic minorities the political parties themselves display qualities of integration. They can set an example in getting people together and deciding their future jointly. No party can claim to be multiracial in its objectives if it is not multiracial in its membership and in the representatives whom it sends to local authorities and ultimately to this House.
In all these ways I believe that we can achieve better community relations and that the prospects for the future can be bright. If we do not achieve good community relations, I dread to think of the cost of failure.

9.32 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Lane): This has been a very useful debate and, to adopt a word used by a number of hon. Members, a candid debate. On the whole, it has also been encouragingly constructive. Unlike some hon. Members, I am glad that we have had a debate on such a wide canvas covering both the problems of immigration and these great issues of race relations. The two are very closely inter-related.
We are all aware that it is not easy to reconcile tight immigration control with positive work for better race relations. No one going round the country talking to people working in the field can fail to see the difficulties. On the other hand, I repeat what my right hon. Friend underlined earlier. The strict control of immigration in the present situation is an indispensable prerequisite to good race relations which we shall not be able to develop unless we can encourage a reasonably relaxed attitude on the part of the majority white community.
In these two sides of what is one coin we believe that we are developing our policies broadly on the right lines. I am also encouraged by the general degree of support that we have had today, although there are some points of difference and some points of criticism on both sides. We are discussing controversial and difficult matters.
I want to try to touch on the main theme of the debate and deal with as many of the questions put to me as time permits. I was sorry to miss the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Wilkinson) and the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Guy


Barnett) and part of what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Fowler). If I am not able to cover some of the detailed points, I assure hon. Members that we shall keep in mind all the views expressed today as we develop our policies in the time ahead.
I should like to welcome the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) back to the Home Affairs beat again. I will endeavour to reply to his points in what seems the logical order as I go along. Likewise, I hope to respond to the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser) in the general tone in which he approached the debate and with which I am very much in sympathy.
It is difficult to be clear on some of these issues just where the Labour Party stands. I welcome the broad area of agreement across the House, but it is no use shutting our eyes to some significant differences. I will give one example from what the hon. Member for Norwood said about illegal immigration. I understood him to say that the policy of his party is to give a general amnesty. In saying that is he also giving the right to what would be many thousands of dependants to come to this country? These are questions that must be put to the Opposition, and the country must draw its own conclusions.
The country might also draw its own conclusions from the strange fact that no Liberal voice has been raised in this debate today. We look forward to hearing on another occasion the maiden speech by the Liberal spokesman on Home Affairs. I understand his difficulties today. But when the Liberals are getting up so often and criticising us, or even the previous Government, the least that we can ask is that one of them might come along and be given time in what is the only big occasion that we have in the next few months for a general debate on this vital subject. This fact also should not be lost on the country.
I want to talk about immigration before coming to race relations. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, the feature of 1973 so far has been a substantial reduction—about 30 per cent. if we leave out of account the Uganda expulsions—in Commonwealth

permanent immigration for settlement compared with last year. This is due partly to the 1971 Act being fully in force. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Redmond) pointed out, the Act is very much in operation now in a number of respects. My right hon. Friend underlined straight away the radical changes that the Act has made in our system.
In parallel with the Act being in force we are engaged in a general firming up of our system of control in various ways, as my right hon. Friend indicated—in particular relating to students, some of whom—fortunately a small minority, but still a significant number—have been trying to take advantage of our system.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South, referred to insurance cards, which form another clear loophole that we are anxious to close. Discussions with the Department of Health and Social Security are still proceeding regarding the details of the closer liaison that we are developing. I hope that that liaison will soon be in force. I am sure that that will also be beneficial in stopping up another undesirable loophole.
There are two main concerns in the House and the country about the general immigration scene. One centres on the Indian sub-continent, which has been mentioned in the debate. We all know of the continuing pressures there and of the unfortunate amount of deception and subterfuge that is employed in trying to evade our controls. These are facts of life that we must face.
I am particularly glad to have the chance of going to the sub-continent early next month to make the best assessment that I can of the whole situation there. I particularly wish to thank—I hope that I have the appreciation of the House with me in this—the work that our staff in the posts there are doing in difficult circumstances.
I shall be looking particularly at the situation of dependants underlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes). I shall also be looking at the way in which the appeals system is working out there. I shall, of course, look at the problem of delays which has been mentioned by hon. Members on both sides of the House. It seems unavoidable at this time, when trying to operate a fair system


and when so many methods are being used to get round it, that delays should occur. Our staff there, whatever their number—we have increased the staff in our posts in Delhi, Islamabad and Dacca in the last few years—must be very careful in checking details and eliminating bogus applicants, so that some delays are inevitable. But I note what has been said by a number of hon. Members and I will look out for that, too, when I am in the sub-continent. The other thing that I want to do there is to talk to the three Governments to see whether more can be done at the beginning of this wretched trade—the far end—in illegal immigration to stamp it out or at least greatly to diminish its scale.
When one reads the pathetic stories, as I have to do, of the men who are caught up in this, and whom we are steadily returning to their own countries when they have been found out here, it is worth trying any new measures at either end which might help to cut it down. That is in addition to the steps that my right hon. Friend mentioned to tighten our defences at this end, particularly in liaison with the authorities on the other side of the Channel.
The other main area of concern is the United Kingdom passport holders in East Africa. My right hon. Friend has clearly explained what we have been doing and what we shall be doing in continuing our policy. I should like to make something clear to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford. He has misunderstood slightly the numerical situation. The overall ceiling, which includes India as well as East Africa, remains at 3,500 vouchers a year for heads of households. The substantial share of this, which was formerly devoted to Uganda, has been frozen in the last year or so. But now, a part of it will be brought into use again for Kenya, but, as my right hon. Friend said, this will remain within and under the global ceiling of 3,500 so it does not amount, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford surmised, to anything like a doubling of the number of vouchers for Kenya.
My right hon. Friend also asked about the Indian Government's part in this, which we acknowledge is very important. We are in fairly constant touch with the Indian Government, but it was not necessary

to make any special approach to them at this time. The existing arrangements mean that India will admit without numerical limit United Kingdom passport holders from East Africa with what is known as the "Indian endorsement" which says that the United Kingdom will accept them for eventual settlement here if they do not settle in India. This will continue to apply, but in fact it is only a very small proportion of these United Kingdom passport holders who tend to come here from India.
Then there have been questions about what I would call the hard cases. The hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Bidwell) mentioned the case in which, the other day, I had to decide to send back to Pakistan a 19-year-old wife because she had come here without waiting her turn and without an entry certificate. I assure him and the House that these are hateful decisions to have to take, but I am equally certain that, if we gave way in a situation such as that, in no time at all many other people would be trying to get around our system simply by jumping the queue—and that we will not have.
The right hon. Member for Stechford asked about husbands and wives—

Mr. Bidwell: Mr. Bidwell rose—

Mr. Lane: I have many other points to answer. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to raise this matter on the Adjournment, when I should be happy to deal with it.
I want to deal with the point raised by the right hon. Member for Stechford about the different rule which applies to husbands and wives—in particular husbands trying to join women who are settled here. The reasons which led his right hon. Friend the then Home Secretary to change the rules in 1969 to avoid the evasion which was developing are just as strong today, and we do not contemplate changing back again at present. We do not believe that this would be consistent with the firm immigration control which we have to maintain.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked me about split families in the context of the Uganda expulsion. The House will remember that my right hon. Friend decided in February that, as part of the international operation begun by the United Nations High Commissioner for


Refugees, we would admit to this country about 300 men who were expelled from Uganda and who were then in Europe and whose wives and children were here. However, it is the general international practice that families should live in the countries where the head of the household is, and we would not feel justified in making now another concession of the kind that we made in February. Of course, it is open to husbands whose wives are here to apply to the nearest British representative for an entry certificate, and any such applications will be carefully considered in the light of all the individual circumstances of the case.
As I am mentioning the Uganda refugees, may I also say that the number remaining in the last centre organised by the Uganda Resettlement Board is down this week to 250, and the board will be taking stock of the whole present situation at its meeting tomorrow. The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned the teachers from Uganda. My right hon. Friend and hon. Friends from the Department heard what he said. I know that they are doing their best to make it possible for these teachers to be further trained and then to play their part in our school system here.
The last point that I want to raise under the general heading of immigration is in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Wilkinson), who asked us about the progress made in the review of the nationality law. As we told the House just over a year ago, when the Government put in hand a review of the nationality law, we were very well aware that this was a highly technical and complex subject and that rapid progress was unlikely. During the past year, these nationality studies have been proceeding and good progress in analysing the possible alternatives is being made. The review is not yet at a stage when we can announce conclusions, but I hope that it will soon be possible for us to say what the next steps will be.
If I may now turn to the race relations side of the debate, inter-related as these subjects inevitably are, it seems to me that this is, as much as it ever was, a time for moderates to stand up and to speak up. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said in his speech at Nottingham, to which reference has been

made, that there is a clash of strident voices from various points on the spectrum. I have experienced this myself during the past year. I have been shouted at by black militants at a meeting in Liverpool and I have been heckled by the National Front in Rugby, and this continues.
On the one hand, one sees and deplores a kind of reverse form of prejudice which is shown by white or coloured extremists, who allege that our whole British society and way of life is riddled with racism. They may think that they are helping their coloured fellow citizens. In fact, their exaggeration is simply inflammatory and counter-productive and they do the cause of race relations a grave disservice. On the other hand, there are still people who seem not to recognise that most of the newcomers are here to stay.
Here may I say that my quarrel with my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) is that in his approach to this great national issue of race relations he seems to be invariably negative. Tonight he was talking, as I think my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West put it, in an apocalyptic tone. He talked several times about candour, but it seems to me that it is my right hon. Friend himself who is lacking in candour when he does not give answers to the basic questions which his speech calls to our minds.
If he is assuming, for the sake of argument, that there are 1½ million coloured people in this country, or even as he believes 2 million, how many of them is he hoping to send overseas, by what means is he hoping to persuade them there, and at what cost? It is he who is living in a world of fantasy if he thinks that anything on this scale can be attempted without catastrophic damage to race relations in this country. I would appeal to him to come to terms himself with the realities of the present situation, to accept that there is, and will remain, a significant coloured minority in our population, and to exert his eloquence and his influence on the side of positive measures to build good race relations in Britain.

Mr. Powell: Will my hon. Friend include in his speech an acknowledgment not merely of the present facts but of a future certain prospect?

Mr. Lane: I am as well aware as my right hon. Friend of the future prospects. I am more concerned to do something positive, constructive and relevant about them. That is what the Government intend to do.
I turn now to the Select Committee reports. I join in the general tributes which have been paid today to those reports over a series of years. I deal first, briefly, with the police report. We have responded—I hope that the House will feel that we have responded positively—in our recent reply to that report of the Select Committee. I was glad to hear the tributes paid today to the police, not least by the hon. Member for Coventry, South (Mr. William Wilson). It has been my impression in the last year that around the country relationships on the whole between the police and the coloured community have been improving.
May I here answer the point raised about the recent police searches in London? The searches which were made by the police on 11th and 25th October were made on specific information relating to the addresses visited and where the police had reason to believe that illegal entrants were being harboured. No areas were cordoned off and no one was questioned indiscriminately in the streets. The police were carrying out their normal operational duties and they required no special Home Office authority to do so. Obviously this is a delicate operation and I know that some concern has been caused. My right hon. Friend heard what was said about it and in his periodical discussions with the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis he will be discussing with him whether any special lessons can be learned from this particular episode.
The last Select Committee report to be published, the report which we have been mainly considering today, was about education. The debate has been heard by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. I am delighted to welcome my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science, who has made his maiden utterance from the Government Front Bench today. All that has been said will be very carefully considered by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State

for Edcation and Science and by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. I confirm what was said earlier, that the Government hope to make their reply to the Select Committee report before Easter.
The third report which has been mentioned is the housing report. Here again, my right hon. Friend has spoken to the Minister for Housing and Construction this afternoon. That reply, too, we hope to present to the House very shortly.
I want to mention two further matters briefly, before concluding my speech on race relations. First, the question of employment, in all of our minds, I think, is the main area of concern when looking ahead on the subject of race relations. I should like to answer another question about the Government's circular to the Civil Service. We fully accept what was said about the circular not covering monitoring, that is, any system of recording the numbers of coloured staff and the positions in which they are employed. The fact is that we have this subject very much in mind and we hope that it will be possible to devise a simple and workable system. We are also hoping to learn valuable lessons from the current reference of the Community Relations Commission into the problems of homelessness and joblessness among young coloured people. That too, I am assured by the Chairman, should be ready very shortly.
Lastly, on the subject of urban policy, I need not confirm to the House—although I want to do so in view of one or two things which were said—that my right hon. Friend is giving very high priority to the new rôle that he has taken on in Government over the whole area of urban policy. I was glad to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Sydney Chapman) said on the importance of this matter and I go along very much with his remarks about balanced communities. I also echo what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford. We have not yet in Britain sufficiently matched resources to the task before us. That applies particularly to the urban problems.
I was asked about the £6 million of extra support announced earlier today. I confirm that in the allocation of that sum over the next three years we shall bear in mind very much the needs of


areas with particularly large numbers of immigrants and coloured people, following the guidelines we have developed over recent years in a number of programmes already in force. I do not think there has been sufficient acknowledgment of them during the debate When I go round to the cities I find that the urban programme, the moneys available under Section 11 and other such support are very much welcomed by the local authorities. The only cry we hear is, "We would like more." We are tying to respond to that cry in the way and to the extent that my right hon. Friend already explained.
I was also asked about the 1968 Act and the suggestions by the Race Relations Board that it should be enlarged and its powers extended. My right hon. Friend has already made clear in his speeches to the board that we are not convinced that the case has yet been made out. We need more time to assess the present working of the Act and to analyse rather more deeply the extent of discrimination and the form it takes in the 1970s, for which the new survey being carried out by PEP will be very helpful.
As my right hon. Friend said in his speech at Blackpool at our party conference, we are determined to pursue two basic aims which are not easy to reconcile but are essential to achieve. The first is to keep down new immigration to a minimum. The people of this country, many of them genuinely worried, must be reassured that we shall maintain firm control and see that the level of immigration declines further.
We shall make full use of the powers in the 1971 Act and shall look for ways of strengthening still more our defences against the pressures that bear upon us. But while we are strict and firm we try also to be fair and humane, and we shall administer the control to the best of our ability, in the words of the immigration rules, without regard to race, colour

and religion. We shall try to avoid rigidity and insensitivity, and in our general application of the rules we shall give proper weight to compassionate circumstances in particular cases.
Our second basic aim is to improve race relations in this country and to tackle the various problems which threaten them. But, as in immigration policy, there must be fairness in our approach to race relations, remembering the interests of the white majority no less than the coloured minority. Yet the main responsibility is surely on us, the overwhelming white majority, to ensure equal rights for all and to remove discrimination wherever it is found.
The Government's ideal is a country where no citizens are made to feel second class and where the colour of a man's skin matters no more than the colour of his hair. Today we are still far short of that ideal, and progress will depend on tolerance, decency and mutual consideration. I stress "mutual" because it must be a two-way matter between different sections of the community.
The responsibility rests not only on Government but on local authorities, employers and trade unionists, and on millions of ordinary men and women up and down the country. Leadership means not just words but action, and the Government will play their full part.
Constructive work in race relations needs to be given a higher priority by us all if the hope of harmoney is to be made stronger than the fear of discord.
In home politics at this time there is no greater challenge than the building of a harmonious society for our children as well as for ourselves. It is a task in which we must succeed, because we dare not fail.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Humphrey Atkins): I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

NORTHERN IRELAND (PROSCRIBED ORGANISATIONS)

10 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Peter Mills): I beg to move,
That the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act Proscribed Organisations (Amendment) Order 1973 (S.I., 1973, No. 1880), a copy of which was laid before this House on 13th November, be approved.
The order is the first of its kind to be made under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973. Its effect is to add two organisations to the list of those proscribed in Schedule 2 to that Act. They are the Ulster Freedom Fighters and the Red Hand Commando, both extreme self-styled loyalist organisations.
For an organisation to be proscribed under the Act it must be one that appears to the Secretary of State to be concerned in terrorism or in promoting or encouraging it. It is, of course, not sufficient that there should be claims from individual terrorists to represent an organisation. There must be an actual organisation, and it is because there was doubt on that point that this order was not made before.
However, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is now satisfied that organisations actually exist which are using these names and which are engaged in terrorist activities. He has therefore made this order and I commend it to the House.

10.2 p.m.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: The Minister has been in Northern Ireland for a long time, or at least what probably seems a long time, but he obviously has not picked up the Irish propensity to talk for a long time. However, no doubt he will answer later the points we raise.
I have two basic questions about the organisations that he mentioned. Who are the Ulster Freedom Fighters and the Red Hand Command. May we be told something of their aims, activities and membership? Are they assocated with any other organisation, when were they formed and why are they now being

proscribed? How many alleged members of the UFF and the Red Hand Commando have been detained by the security forces since the proscription of the two organisations almost four weeks ago? How many of those detained have been put in the Maze? How many are to be subject to prosecution in a normal court of law and how many have been released?
The order is made under the urgent procedure and I doubt if anyone will complain about that. As we were told in Macbeth,
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly".
However, the order raises serious questions. On the point about proscription, I remind the House that in the debate on the Civil Powers Special Regulations on 14th May this year we expressed serious reservations about the idea of proscription and on that occasion the Republican clubs were being de-proscribed. In the Division late that evening both my hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. MacNamara) and Salford, West (Mr. Orme) voted with the Government on the de-proscription which took place. However, when the emergency provisions Bill was in Standing Committee in June this year the Opposition voted against proscription as a general principle in debates on Clause 18 and Schedule 2.
I should like to repeat the argument that I put then, and perhaps I may remind the House of what I said in proposing that Schedule 2 should be deleted. I said,
The longer I consider the method of proscribing organisations to deal with the problems of Northern Ireland or any other country, the more I think that it is the wrong approach, and I shall seek to argue that. It does not need repeating but for the record I make it clear that in no sense could anyone countenance the activities of at least some of the proscribed organisations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 25th June 1973 ; c. 599.]
The question is, what does proscription achieve? I reminded the Standing Committee that members of the IRA in uniform march in Belfast, and Mr. O'Connell goes to speak at funerals there. Has it helped to have the IRA proscribed? I reminded the Committee that the Central Citizens' Defence Committee addressed a


letter to the IRA in Andersonstown. The address of the IRA in Andersonstown was given in the reply of the IRA to the CCDC. Here is a proscribed organisation that advertises its address. Over here, and correctly, in my view, we do not proscribe the IRA, and in strict security terms one of the advantages of that is, I presume, that the Special Branch know who the people are in the IRA, whereas if they were driven underground or into cover organisations it would be a little difficult.
I have been re-reading the OFFICIAL REPORT of the debate in Committee, and there was but a very short reply on this matter when the Minister of State made his speech in that debate. Brevity seems to be shared by Ministers of State and Under-Secretaries of State in answering on this point. Diffused in his speech was that it is politically impossible to de-proscribe. Then we voted against that clause on principle, but we saw the political problem that faces this Government or any Government in Northern Ireland on this matter.
If at best proscription achieves nothing practical, then at worst it has at least one important disadvantage. The act of making membership of certain organisations illegal tends to give the impression to some people that the members of other, non-proscribed, organisations are acting legally ; or alternatively, that the illegal actions of members of such organisations are being ignored by the authorities. The best current example is the Ulster Defence Association. Since that body has not been proscribed some people seem to think that all the actions of its members have been legal, or at least that the illegal actions of its members are not being taken sufficiently seriously by the authorities.
In fact, while membership of the UDA is not illegal, some members of that organisation have been detained, and others convicted of crimes as serious as that of murder. The instance of the UDA makes the point clear. The law should be directed at individuals and not at organisations, and on that basis the policy of proscription, as a principle, is little short of worthless.
I return to the UFF and the Red Hand Commando. I was in Belfast on the day those organisations were proscribed.

There had been killings, and they were killings of Catholics at that time, and, given the proscription of the IRA, there was a cry, "Proscribe those other organisations". Politically, and in my view politically only, the Government felt they had to proscribe those organisations, and it was understandable, given the feeling there was, that the Government acted in that way. But it was a political action, it was not the necessity to deal with the people concerned, because if they had had evidence against the people concerned they would not have needed proscription to deal with them.
We shall not vote against the order tonight. That would be misunderstood in the current situation. I end now as we did in Committee on the Bill. We do not condone violence. We want the Government to act against those who break the law, from whatever organisation they come. We want to see the method of proscription ended. It is dangerous to give advice months ahead, but I would say to the Government, end it when detention is ended. Our hope is that when detention is ended proscription will be ended, and we hope they will be ended next July when the matter comes before the House when some of the provisions of the Act come up for renewal.
Given the situation in Belfast when these organisations were proscribed, we shall not vote against the order. We have grave doubts about the method of proscription, and we shall seek to bring this matter before the House time and again in the months ahead.

10.11 p.m.

Captain L. P. S. Orr: It has become almost a ritual when we embark upon a series of Northern Ireland orders at this time of night to make a complaint. I go through the ritual again simply to place upon the record the fact that we consider this a monstrous way of dealing with matters of such great importance. We are to deal tonight with an order concerning the life, limb and liberty of people, and an appropriation order concerning the whole range of Government expenditure in Northern Ireland. We are to do so while the staff of the House is depleted. We are left with the fag-end of the week, in the small hours of the morning possibly, debating


these very serious matters at an inappropriate time.
It is almost impossible to explain to anyone in Ulster how it comes about that, at what one might call a peak parliamentary time, on Monday next from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., we are to debate the landscaping of New Palace Yard, but that we are dealing with matters of great importance to Ulster at the fag-end of the week.
The hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) has cogently and rightly argued against the case for proscription, and I agree with him. I think that on the whole I have steadily, over these debates on the subject, become convinced that there is no great value in proscription at all. I think the sooner it was ended the better. Proscription, as the hon. Gentleman rightly argued, does not achieve anything in the end. Proscription has proved in practice to have had no marked effect at all.
The trouble about proscription, as the hon. Gentleman again rightly argued, is that it becomes almost impossible to de-proscribe. The only thing that can be said in favour of proscription is that it marks a sort of public disapproval of the organisation concerned and its aims. But one cannot then de-proscribe without doing the reverse—without saying that Parliament is now setting its seal of approval upon the organisation that is now to be de-proscribed. Thus, I place no great reliance upon proscription.
This order proscribes two more organisations. The only value of the order is that it allows us in this House to place on record once again our detestation of any organisations or people who use violent and barbarous means to try to achieve a political end. It gives us the opportunity to do that, and in that sense I welcome the order.
It also displays the impartiality of the authorities in their treatment of violence from whatever quarter. In that sense, too, it is valuable. For that reason I join with the hon. Gentleman in saying that we do not oppose the order, and for that reason only. I also agree that we should eventually try to get away from proscription. I had intended to ask almost precisely the questions the hon. Member asked about the two organisations,

the number of detainees and so on. I have one further question to ask. How many of these people belonging to these organisations, if there be any already detained, will be released before Christmas in accordance with the Prime Minister's promise today? It will be interesting to see whether the release of detainees has about it the same impartial air as the detention.
One of the anomalies about proscription is that we are proscribing organisations in Northern Ireland which we do not proscribe in the rest of the United Kingdom. This seems nonsensical. If it be right for us to use the weapon of proscription against such organisations in one part of the United Kingdom then logically we should use that weapon throughout the United Kingdom.
It seems nonsensical to say that this weapon will be used against the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland but not against that organisation in the rest of the United Kingdom. Thus these proscription orders, to be logical, ought to be United Kingdom orders. If the UFF is a dangerous organisation, to be banned by parliamentary action in one part of the kingdom, then it is a dangerous organisation that ought to be proscribed throughout the kingdom. It is hard to explain to anyone why the Provisional IRA is unlawful in Northern Ireland and yet is perfectly lawful in the rest of the United Kingdom and can go about its business openly, collecting funds. It would be just as easy to argue that these two organisations, being proscribed, should not be allowed to carry on their activities, if they chose to do so, in the cities of the rest of the kingdom.
Like the hon. Gentleman, I do not propose to oppose the order. All I say is that it will not make the slightest difference to the activities which it seeks to destroy. Proscription made not the slightest difference to the activities of the Provisional IRA. This afternoon there have been a series of hi-jackings and bombings and they may still be going on. Proscription will not have the slightest effect on the people who normally associate with the organisations we are now proscribing. We are going through an activity here which is a little unreal and out of touch with what is happening. I should prefer to hear from the Minister more about the security forces and what they


are doing about getting on top of violence from whatever quarter. I should like to hear about the work of Intelligence and how it is finding out about conspiracies.
It is not so much an organisation that one wants to get at. One wants to get at those who are actively conspiring against the public good to use violence for political ends. I hope that my hon. Friend will tell us a little more about that. I do not intend to oppose the order although I do not think that it will do the slightest good.

10.20 p.m.

Mr. John Biggs-Davison: Like my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) I deplore the manner in which the House is dealing with this Northern Irish business. We are discussing the liberty of the subject in Northern Ireland at this late hour and in derisory numbers. I have already described this situation in relation to Irish business as a constitutional scandal.
The hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) asked, who are these people? I, too, would like to hear a little more about that from my hon. Friend. Doubtless, these two lurid organisations contain some sincere loyalists who justify, to themselves at any rate, desperate courses by the destruction of a parliament to which they were attached and objection to political concessions made by Her Majesty's Government. I am also fairly certain that these organisations contain criminals, common and uncommon, thugs, sadists and political racketeers whose loyalism is an obscene contradiction in terms, the sort of people about whom I was told by a Catholic hotelier of my acquaintance from whom they levied a regular supply of crates of beer in return for not damaging his property.
These people use a flag and abuse a faith for criminal ends. Nor should their use of the Union Jack blind us to the penetration of organisations such as these from the extreme Left. I suppose it could be said that the UFF is like the UVF only more so.
Some hon. Members may have studied an interesting interview with Tomas MacGiolla, the President of the Official Republican Sinn Fein, in the Morning Star of yesterday. In this interview Mr. MacGiolla said :

It appears to us that the Tyrone UVF has some good people but the local UDA is Right-wing. Elsewhere it is the other way round.
That is very interesting and significant. "Good people" said Mr. MacGiolla. Good for what? Surely, for the erection of a revolutionary republic on the ruins of a Christian Ireland.
We have no sympathy for these organisations. Nevertheless, we want to hear what will be achieved by proscribing them, particularly when the previous Secretary of State rejected the Conservative Party Conference demand to proscribe the IRA in this island as in Northern Ireland. There are arguments on both sides, but it is strange that certain organisations should be singled out in this way, and I should like to hear more from my hon. Friend.

10.24 p.m.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: When the House of Commons suspended the Parliament of Northern Ireland on the basis that it was not dealing fairly with the affairs of Northern Ireland and took over the duty of running Northern Ireland from Westminster, it should have acted honourably and ethically. Having taken the duty upon itself, it should have given prime place in parliamentary time to dealing with the affairs of Northern Ireland. It has failed abysmally in the exercise of this duty.
Most of the debates which have taken place in the past 20 months on Northern Ireland have taken place late at night or in the small hours of the morning. In that way the proper function of the House to act as a chamber in which grievances can be discussed and ventilated cannot be performed. There is little hope of the matters which are debated in the small hours of the morning being reported in the following day's Press. By two days later the matter is dead. If all the British people were faced with the type of terrorist campaign which has faced the people of Northern Ireland, what would they say if the grievances of their constituents were ventilated only in the small hours of the morning?
I add my voice in protest against the shabby way in which Her Majesty's Government have treated Ireland during the past 20 months since Stormont was suspended.
The questions which have been put by the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) and by some of my hon. Friends must be answered by the Minister. He must deal clearly with what advantage he sees in the banning of the Ulster Freedom Fighters and the Red Hand Commando. He must reply to the question which has been put by some hon. Members—namely, how many arrests have been made in the months since those bodies have been banned and how many of those arrested have been charged or will be charged. My hon. Friend must deal with that matter.
Further, my hon. Friend must deal with the reply which has often been made in the past to myself and my hon. Friends when they have asked that the IRA should be banned in this country. My right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench have said that to ban the IRA would be to drive it underground. Why did they not take the same view in respect of these organisations? My right hon. and hon. Friends cannot have their cake and eat it. They cannot say on one occasion that they refuse to ban the IRA because it will do no good, because it will hinder the security forces in the detection and prevention of crime, and yet when dealing with these two bodies—

Mr. Stanley Orme: Deal with the point.

Mr. McMaster: I shall deal with the point in a moment. My right hon. and hon. Friends suggest that there is an advantage in banning these organisations. If there is a difference, my hon. Friend is under a duty to spell it out.
I remind my hon. Friend that during the past four years, since the trouble started in Northern Ireland in October 1969, some 281 soldiers and police have been killed. In each case the IRA has issued a statement afterwards claiming responsibility for those deaths. Not one soldier or officer has been killed by anyone other than members of the IRA—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Leeds. South wishes to interrupt me, perhaps he will do so and give the statistics to the House.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: I do not wish to join in an argument about who killed whom.

I assure the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) that I have an example in front of me of a member of the UDA who killed a policeman. I have the details in front of me because I have been checking over the past few months why the man who killed the policeman had a licensed gun. The hon. Gentleman knows by now that there is no one on this side of the House who wishes not to deal with those who want to shoot and kill. During the whole time that the IRA has been killing and shooting it has been a proscribed organisation. That is the argument which we are putting forward.

Mr. McMaster: The hon. Gentleman is not following my argument. I was talking about the position not in Northern Ireland but in the United Kingdom. The IRA is not proscribed in the United Kingdom. Leaders of the IRA have come to this country and have not been arrested and charged with being members of the IRA, simply because the body is not proscribed. The hon. Member for Leeds, South has mentioned just one case out of 281 when a policeman was killed by a member of the UDA. In the other 280 cases the IRA issued statements later. If the hon. Gentleman wishes me to do so, I will go through the papers with him to prove it.
I ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State why a body that has waged war, and is waging war, on the British Army—a body that has claimed responsibility for the death of our Service men and of our policemen—should not be proscribed in this country. These other two bodies, which have not been responsible for anything like the carnage of which the IRA is guilty, are being proscribed. There is a difference in treatment which cries out for explanation.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) and I have repeatedly asked for action. A resolution at the Conservative Party Conference this year seeking to ban the IRA was not accepted by the Government, yet at the same time they are seeking to proscribe these other bodies which, to the best of my knowledge, have been in existence for only a number of months and whose operations are very limited when compared with the operations of the IRA.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: I state categorically that I detest and hate killings and bombings by the IRA or by anybody else in Ireland. Will the hon. Gentleman say that he detests the UVF, the UFF, the Red Hand of Ulster and everything they stand for?

Mr. McMaster: Of course, I decry anybody or any member of an organisation who takes it into his own hands to cause assassinations or deaths. But I am asking why one body should be treated differently from another.

Mr. Rees: Let us get the situation quite clear, because it appears to be getting somewhat confused. In Northern Ireland the IRA, the UVF, the UFF and the Red Hand of Ulster are proscribed. They are all treated exactly the same. We are saying that proscription is a waste of time. We are saying that they should be dealt with for what they are doing and that we should not waste time on proscription.

Mr. McMaster: If the hon. Gentleman is saying that these bodies should be proscribed in Ireland, why does he not say that they should be proscribed in this country? The IRA has recently been responsible for bomb outrages in Britain and at this very moment it is carrying out hijackings and a bombing campaign in Northern Ireland. I am sure my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has taken my point and I hope that he will deal with it. The IRA is not banned in Great Britain, and yet the Government seek to ban these two bodies in Northern Ireland. Is proscription worth while or is it not?
I believe that it is valuable to proscribe illegal bodies, and I say this for two reasons. Let us take as a parallel recent legislation in this House relating to pornography and discrimination. They are going through this House because it is believed that if they are included in legislation it will help to form public opinion.

Mr. Orme: We accept that point.

Mr. McMaster: The hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) apparently accepts that point. In the same way I argue that the IRA should be banned in Great Britain. I want to be told why these bodies are being proscribed by the

order and yet the IRA is not being proscribed.
My second point is equally valid. When bodies such as this are proscribed—and again I speak not only of Northern Ireland but of the United Kingdom as a whole—the media are inhibited from interviewing their spokesmen. Members of those bodies do not get a free and easy Press. At present, both the Press and the broadcasting organisations not only give these persons an opportunity to repeat their propaganda and their threats but also claim that they have the duty to interview them so that their views can be presented to the public.
If you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, had witnessed some of the events in Northern Ireland that I have seen, if you had seen people who had lost members of their families killed by casual bombs placed by terrorists, if you had seen injured people in hospital, and if you had then tuned in to a television programme only to see a member of the IRA interviewed in Britain or in Dublin, you would be outraged. Why, then, do we allow this indefensible position to exist?
I ask my hon. Friend to reconsider the Government's attitude to this question. If he thinks it right to proscribe the bodies specified in the order, will he not come to the logical consequence of his act and also accept our argument that the IRA itself—both the Provisional and the Official IRA—should be banned throughout the United Kingdom?

10.37 p.m.

Mr. Peter Mills: We have heard some of these arguments many times, and I quite understand the one advanced by the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) about proscribing. I understand why he opposes it. I shall try to put the arguments as we see them, though I admit that this must be a matter of judgment.
Some hon. Members have said that I must answer the questions which have been put to me. I shall try to do my best. But in this difficult situation in Northern Ireland, especially in view of security considerations, it is not possible always to supply the exact information required by the House. I hope that hon. Members will not think I am being rude if I say that they go a bit far when they


insist that I must answer their questions. I shall do my best.
No one will contend that proscription of an organisation by itself is an adequate means of dealing with terrorism. Like other means which have to be employed in situations of severe civil unrest, it has features which those accustomed to the standards of a peaceful society understandably find objectionable. However, where a situation exists in which a terrorist organisation is daily killing and wounding innocent people and destroying their property and publicly professing its intention to continue to do it, it is equally objectionable to the victims, their friends and the community at large if the Government do not do all in their power to prevent the terrorist organisation flaunting its power and extending its intimidation. My hon. Friends are always on at the Government, and rightly—it is their duty to criticise—about the need to combat terrorism. I am saying that this is one method of aiding that.
The hon. Member for Leeds, South asked what proscription does. It serves a notice on anyone who may be a misguided but comparatively innocent member of the organisation concerned that it is time that he got out. It prevents or inhibits the organisation from openly collecting money or soliciting support in the Press or on television or recruiting young people for the furtherance of its activities.

Captain Orr: Surely my hon. Friend is making a very strong case for the proscription of these bodies throughout the rest of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Mills: If my hon. and gallant Friend will be patient, I shall try to deal with that point as well.
Proscription prevents or inhibits the organisation from openly collecting money or soliciting support in the Press or on television or recruiting young people for the furtherance of its activities. It also reduces the dangers to the public peace which would result from public parades and demonstrations of organisations which are known to have killed and maimed innocent people. Some hon. Members say that it does not do enough. But it could be worse. The problem could be 10 times worse.
If we proscribe these organisations, a chief constable can issue certificates to people who are injured so that compensation can be paid. That point should not be overlooked.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Will the hon. Gentleman explain a little more about the chief constable's certificate?

Mr. Mills: I will look into this matter more closely, but I put it forward as a point of interest. The chief constable has to give a certificate that terrorist activity has taken place so that the person concerned may claim compensation. If the organisation concerned is proscribed, I believe that adds weight to the claim. I will certainly check that point. I put it in as a small point in favour of proscription.

Mr. McMaster: If someone suffers as a result of IRA terrorist activities in London—for example, in the recent bombings—does such a certificate need to be given? Is not this an argument for the IRA and other bodies being banned throughout the United Kingdom?

Mr. Mills: My hon. Friend is anticipating. I will come to the position of the IRA in Great Britain in time.

Mr. McMaster: Is a certificate necessary?

Mr. Mills: The question of the IRA in Great Britain is for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, not for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

Mr. McMaster: My hon. Friend is not with me. Before damages can be claimed, is a certificate from the chief constable necessary and does it help if the body is banned?

Mr. Mills: That is true in Northern Ireland. The position in Great Britain is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I shall not answer on his behalf.
Questions were asked about the statistics of terrorist activities. The Secretary of State is satisfied that the organisations named in the order have been involved in terrorist activities. Certainly it would not be in the public interest to indicate the nature of the intelligence that has led to that conclusion. It is a combination of both


political and security action or aid. I believe that it has a deterrent effect, although some hon. Members may disagree.
There is no doubt that the UFF has publicly claimed responsibility for certain terrorist actions. The Red Hand Commando is an organisation with its own command structure and, whilst an independent body, acts in direct alignment with the policies and principles of the UVF. It is not possible for me to go further on that point. Since proscription, 29 Protestants and 53 Catholics have been arrested and charged with security offences.
I note the remarks of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) about timing and so on, which he has made before. He must have had his tongue in his cheek when he asked me how many would be released before Christmas. That is not a question for an Under-Secretary to answer ; it is entirely one for the Secretary of State.
As for proscribing the IRA in Great Britain, the Government recognise that the maintenance of law and order throughout the United Kingdom is of primary importance. Therefore, we are prepared to take any action that will be effective in dealing with terrorists and violence. If declaring the IRA illegal in Britain would help, we should not hestitate to propose the necessary legislation. But I am sure that everyone would agree that the main aim is to get and bring to justice those responsible for acts of violence. I suppose I am slightly out of order in replying to this, because it is a matter for the Home Secretary.

Mr. McMaster: I fail to follow my hon. Friend. If an IRA terrorist escapes from prison, or even if he has never been arrested, and comes to Britain from the North or the South of Ireland, if the IRA is not proscribed what steps can then be taken to bring him to justice?

Mr. Mills: This is a matter of judgment. My hon. Friend's judgment is that the IRA in Britain should be made illegal. The Government say that they are prepared to do this if it would help over here, where the situation is entirely different.
I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) has no sympathy for these organisations : they do not deserve any sympathy. I too have seen the misery that this sort of thing has caused. Terrorists are terrorists, whatever their label, and should be dealt with. My hon. Friend also mentioned the UDA in England. I do not suppose for a moment—

Mr. Biggs-Davison: I did not mention it.

Mr. Mills: I am sorry, I thought he did.
My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) was, I think, against proscribing these two organisations Although we do not say that this is the main way of dealing with these terrorists, we believe that it is a deterrent.

Mr. McMaster: I did not say that I was against proscribing these two organisations. I said that I was against proscribing them if we did not at the same time proscribe the IRA in this country. What is the difference between collecting money and recruiting in Britain and doing the same in Ireland? Can British money be used for the IRA?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): I think that the hon. Gentleman is getting out of order. It would be better if we moved on and left that point.

Mr. Mills: I accept it if the hon. Member says that he did not say he was against proscribing these two organisations. I simply thought he did. All I was trying to say was that one cannot have it both ways. We believe that proscription acts as a small deterrent and an aid, quite apart from the compensation point. This is a matter of judgment, and we believe that it is of some aid for the reasons I have given.
I would not deny that power to prosecute is also dangerous if it is not carefully used. It might drive organisations underground. It might influence people who have not realised that the organisation to which they belong is more dangerous than appeared to them when they joined it. It might even attract sympathy to an organisation when a large section of the public believes that it has been unjustly dealt with. The decision is one which must be taken after careful consideration of the security


factors and of what one might broadly call political factors, since the attitude of public opinion is vitally important.
In the present circumstances, weighing up all these factors, the decision was taken to proscribe the two organisations named in the order, and I honestly believe that the decision was right. It is for that reason that I commend the order to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act Proscribed Organisations (Amendment) Order 1973 (S.I., 1973, No. 1880), a copy of which was laid before this House on 13th November, be approved.

NORTHERN IRELAND (APPROPRIATION)

10.52 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Peter Mills): I beg to move,
That the Appropriation (No. 3) (Northern Ireland) Order 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on 15th November, be approved.
We now turn to something entirely different. This order, which appropriates the Autumn Supplementary Estimates, is the third Northern Ireland appropriation order to be considered by the House this year. In March last the House approved the first appropriation order, which voted £204 million on account for the present financial year, and in July the House approved the second appropriation order, which voted the balance, £358 million, of the main Estimates. An additional £31 million is now required for the Autumn Supplementary Estimates, bringing total Estimates provision in the current financial year to £593 million.
Broadly speaking, about half of the additional provision sought arises from the reorganisation of local government in Northern Ireland, and as such does not constitute an actual increase in public expenditure. Of the balance, £9 million approximately is required to provide for new policies or to meet increased expenditure on existing policies and just over £6 million is needed for pay increases.
I propose to deal in some detail with the more important items in turn.
In Class II, No. 7, on page 3 of the order, hon. Members will see that £15 million is required to clear the debit balances on the revenue accounts of the former local authorities. These balances were transferred to the Ministry of Finance on 1st October 1973 under local government reorganisation. I should emphasise, however, that this figure is inflated to some extent because grants and other debts which were due to the former local authorities were not, in fact, in all cases received by them before 30th September.
Some consequential savings in the expenditure of various Ministries may therefore be expected when the appropriation accounts are prepared. I should also emphasise again that this is purely a transfer of expenditure from one part of the public sector to another and does not rank as an increase in public expenditure.
In Class III, on page 3, an additional £5·2 million is required for law and order. The sum of £2·6 million is for the police service, largely for police overtime which was particularly high early in the year as a result of duties connected with the border poll, local government and Assembly elections, and for increased rates of pay and allowances. The sum of £1·2 million is needed for prisons and borstal institutions, partly to cater for increases in the number of prison staff and partly because of increased rates of pay. The increase in the number of staff reflects the increases in the prison population, which in turn reflects the increasing successes of the security forces. That must not be overlooked.
An additional £1 million is also required to pay for compensation for criminal injuries. I need hardly point out to hon. Members that it is very difficult to forecast expenditure under this head.
In Class IV, on page 4, an additional £2·2 million is required—for supplementary benefits, old persons' pensions, attendance allowances and family income supplements. The greater part of the extra money is needed for higher rates of benefits. The balance reflects increases in the number of beneficiaries.
Those are the main points to which I should wish to draw attention, but I shall endeavour to answer any points which hon. Members may have. On


such a complicated and long appropriation order, I hope the House will forgive me if I do not know all the answers, but I shall see that hon. Members receive proper answers.
I think, however, that all hon. Members will agree that the making available of these additional funds yet again testifies more eloquently than any words of mine can our absolute commitment on this side of the Irish Sea to a peaceful, prosperous and just Northern Ireland. These are large sums of money.
For the reasons I have given on three of the more important matters, I believe that I can commend the order to the House.

10.57 p.m.

Mr. Stanley Orme: This is an extremely wide-ranging order. We could have a full day's debate on what is virtually a supplementary budget for Northern Ireland. There have been three such supplements this year, dealing with a total of about £630 million. It is a considerable sum, and we have a very short time in which to debate it.
If, as we hope, the Executive gets off the ground and the new constitution in Northern Ireland works, this order will be the last legislation in this form to come before the House of Commons. Looking at the Northern Ireland Constitution Act and the White Paper, we see that entirely new provisions for financing the Government in Northern Ireland, through both the Assembly and the Executive, will have to come into force.
The sum granted to the police force is £2,607,000, but in the appropriations-in-aid there is a decrease of £3,000. What does that mean?
Under phase 2 and phase 3 the police in Northern Ireland have been penalised. They have asked for special payments, but these have been refused because they would put the police there out of line with those in the rest of the United Kingdom. That is extraordinary, because the police and fire services in Northern Ireland are doing an exceptional job under exceptional circumstances. To use phase 3 against such provisions is idiotic, particularly when there is a need for recruitment and improvement in the service. We have all welcomed the new attitude and outlook in the RUC, which

we hope will develop during the coming months and years. I may be wrong about this appropriation-in-aid, and the figure of £2,607,000 could be an appreciable increase because of overtime.
On page 4 we read of an increase of £572,900.
For the salaries and certain expenses of the Ministry of Health and Social Services, a grant in aid and for the selective butter subsidy'.
I hesitate to raise the point during such a debate, but has that anything to do with the Common Market? What does the increase entail? There is also an increase for the payment of non-contributory benefits. Because of the special pressures on the social services in Northern Ireland, there is need for an increase. The Minister might care to give some details about the terminology "Sums Granted" and "Appropriations in Aid". We should like an explanation of exactly where the moneys have gone.
Assuming that the figures I have given are correct, and there is a quite considerable increase in expenditure over the three mini-budgets, I feel that we should have an explanation. We are not criticising that increase in the sense that we do not think it has been applied correctly, but the Minister should give an outline. He might say how much of the increase has been borne by Whitehall and whether the increase is in line with Government policy on controlling public expenditure. We on the Opposition side who are opposed to phase 3 anyway would hate to see that policy used so as not to improve conditions in Northern Ireland.
In winding up the debate on Second Reading of the Northern Ireland Constitution Bill on 24th May, the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. David Howell) dealt with the new financial arrangements which will come into effect when the new Executive and the new constitutional arrangements come into full operation. They had been outlined in the White Paper. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) asked the hon. Gentleman :
Does the Minister recall that the Government issued advice about these Northern Ireland financial arrangements which has been invaluable in the past year? Would they consider issuing the new arrangements in some such form? It will save a great deal of time.


The Minister replied :
We will certainly agree to do that. It sounds a very good idea."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th May 1973 ; Vol. 857, c. 795.]
He added that we could expect to learn from the Government how the new proposals would work.
We are to deal with a new form of financing for the whole of Northern Ireland. Under a block grant system, the Treasury will hand over to the Northern Ireland Executive and the Assembly a sum to be negotiated, which will then be used in an overall grant system of allocation to the different Ministries for the different expenditures. The negotiation that will take place between the Executive and the Treasury will be of crucial importance because, of course, it will depend on the budget which will be used by the Executive and the Assembly.

Captain L. P. S. Orr: I want to clarify something. The hon. Gentleman talks about negotiation between the Executive and the Treasury. I understand that the negotiation will be between the Secretary of State and the Treasury. The old system was negotiation between the Government of Northern Ireland and the Treasury, with an Exchequer board. The system is to be changed since the Secretary of State will allocate the money.

Mr. Orme: That is a valid point, and it is one we want to clear up. But, of course, the Secretary of State will not hold the negotiation without consulting the Executive. We should have it spelt out. The House is to discuss devolution next Thursday, and that will include expenditure in relation to the Council of Ireland. It is about time we knew what the financial provisions are to be. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is probably right in his speculation from what was said on 24th May and in the White Paper. All we have to go on, however, is two paragraphs of the White Paper and what was said on 24th May. As yet we have nothing in concrete form.
Again, what about finance for the reserve powers expenditure of the Home Office and so on? This is another sector which will come into a very complicated picture. We are looking tonight beyond the order. We do not expect the Under-Secretary of State to answer in detail off

the cuff tonight, but we want him to convey our concern to the Secretary of State. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South and I have discussed this, and we feel that there is urgent need to bring forward these financial provisions.
We welcome these proposals, but it is unsatisfactory that we should have to debate them in an hour and a half. We accept the criticisms made by Conservative Members in that regard. Possibly this is the last time such matters will be discussed in this setting, but this House of Commons should look at the other proposals which are to be considered in the new Assembly and the new Eecutive of Northern Ireland.

11.9 p.m.

Mr. John Biggs-Davison: What the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) has said has been most helpful to the House. I wish to speak briefly on the rather surprising decrease of £3,000 under the heading of, "Police Services". I should like an assurance that it does not represent any slackening in the Government's determination to recruit to bring the RUC and the RUC reserve up to full strength. I am not sure what the recruiting position is now, but I am particularly disturbed by the fall in the Catholic component, which is now, I believe, below 10 per cent.
I also hope that there is no lessening in the Government's determination to see that both the RUC and the RUC reserve are fully equipped with the most modern weapons, transport, R/T and so on. A year or so ago I accompanied a special patrol group of the RUC. It was said then that its equipment was not of the same standard as that used by the UDR. I believe that there has been a great improvement since then. However, that rather odd figure of a decrease of £3,000 raises questions in my mind and I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will reassure me.

11.10 p.m.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: I should like first to endorse the point made by the hon. Member for Sal-ford, West (Mr. Orme) asking what future arrangements will be made for the provision of money for services in Northern Ireland.
The order provides for £31 million to be issued out of the Consolidated Fund


and gives further power to the Minister for Finance to borrow about £16 million. Those are substantial sums and I shall therefore consider in some detail the items set out in the schedule.
Will my hon. Friend first deal with Class I? It is provided there that the salaries of the Central Ministerial Secretariats and other expenses, including expenses of the Information Service, shall amount to £35,000. Just how is that money to be spent? What proportion of it is to be spent abroad? My hon. Friend the Minister will be aware from the debate we have just concluded of the effort of the IRA to raise money abroad to support its campaign in Northern Ireland. I have seen evidence of its activity in the United States. I want to know what the Information Service is doing to counter that propaganda campaign and the efforts of subversive organisations in Northern Ireland to raise money abroad and to spread propaganda to the detriment of the people in Northern Ireland and this country.
What support do the services get from British embassies and consular services? Are they in any way covered by this grant and what additional moneys are made available? Are persons appointed to the embassies to deal with this campaign which is so damaging to the reputation of this country?
I move on to Class II. Various items are there set out and I note that £15,900 is allocated to public works. I note, too, that there is no increase in the appropriations in aid for the current year. We all know how the prices of building and land have increased in the last year. May we be told why there is no increase in this amount in view of those rising prices? What has been the effect of inflation? Does the absence of an increase mean that there has been a fall in the amount of work done under this head?
I move on to Class III under which my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) referred to the decrease in expenditure on the police services of £3,000. My remarks about public works apply equally here. With the increase in salaries one would expect there to be an increase under this head. Why has there not been one? I should like to delve a little deeper into the police

services, which is probably one of the most important services to be covered by the order. I should like to be told about the effect of the moneys provided for police recruitment. We all know that the police in Northern Ireland are facing the most difficult task of any police force in the United Kingdom, indeed in the world. They have had to put up with heavy casualties over the past four years. Many have been killed carrying out their duties, some while on leave. Others have been seriously injured. If recruitment is to be increased so that the terrorist campaign can be adequately contained we must increase the inducement offered to men to join the force.
It is particularly necessary to obtain a balanced police force. One of the criticisms which led to the appointment of the Hunt Committee was that the force was not properly balanced when the disturbances started in 1969. What success have the Government had, as a result of the implementation of the Hunt Committee's recommendations, in restoring the balance? If members of the minority community in Northern Ireland are to be persuaded to join the police, and we understand the pressures against them, then surely we must be prepared to offer some inducement to these men to take on the tremendous risk to themselves, their families and relations. Great risk is involved in their public-spirited action in offering themselves as recruits for the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Can the Minister say a word about the control of the police? This is a matter of considerable concern in Northern Ireland. Both the SDLP—and I am sorry that we do not have a representative of that party here tonight—and the Dublin Government have suggested that control of the police should be vested in the new Council of Ireland. This is something which would be strongly resisted by the majority of people living in Northern Ireland. What are the Government's intentions about this vital matter?
I want to deal with one matter reported to me, and of which my hon. Friend is aware, namely that senior officers in the RUC will not at the moment, under a Government directive, be eligible for promotion unless they have served abroad for two years. We


know the pressures under which the police are operating in Northern Ireland. We know how scarce senior and experienced officers are. What is the Minister doing about this? If he insists that all senior men must have two years' experience abroad then many of the top men in the RUC will not be eligible for further promotion. Can these men be spared? If they can be, are there positions abroad in which they can obtain the necessary experience? Is the police service in Northern Ireland to be deprived of these senior men, and what will be the effect on recruitment if this is so?
Much has been made of complaints against the police. What is the true history? How many complaints are received about the conduct of police officers in Northern Ireland as compared with complaints against police officers in other parts of the United Kingdom? Is the number of complaints rising or has it fallen? What is the true record about complaints against members of the RUC?
I should like to ask by hon. Friend what are the Government's plans for restructuring the police force. A great deal of anxiety has been expressed to me on this topic.
I asked my hon. Friend recently in the House whether the Government had any plans for restructuring the police force and he gave me a most equivocal reply, saying that we had an excellent police force which could be praised in any way, but he did not answer my question. I hope that he will meet the question square on and will tell the House whether any plans are afoot, and if so, what they are, to restructure and reorganise the police force.
Perhaps he will add a word on the standard of morale. I had the opportunity recently to speak to the new Chief Constable, Mr. Flanagan—my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell was with me—and I was pleased at the confidence which Mr. Flanagan expressed in the morale of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. I should like to know what my hon. Friend thinks on this point.
I do not want to go through each provision of this order because my hon. Friends have points to make on Classes

IV, V, and VI, but I should like to ask about one detailed accounting point about Class VI, 3, in respect of improvement of livestock, diseases of animals, and so on, for which there is an allocation of £353,100. This represents an increase of £602,000 over the previous year. Does this mean that there was a negative sum of £300,000, or is there a misprint in the order? These two sums do not tally. I cannot understand how his figure is arrived at. Perhaps my hon. Friend will look into the point.
With respect to Class VII, for expenses of the Ministry of Commerce in respect of industrial development services, I have a particular interest because part of the money will probably be allocated to my constituency. Some of my constituency's problems have been mentioned. Many hon. Members know that East Belfast is a heavy industry area and I wonder whether my hon. Friend will say whether any of the allocation of money for the expenses of the Ministry of Commerce on industrial development is to be allocated to Harland and Wolff which I believe needs further assistance to complete the modernisation of its yards—or is the money to come from an additional fund?
On the same topic, perhaps my hon. Friend will say something about the other great industry in my constituency, Short Brothers, which employs many people from my constituency and others. What progress is being made by that firm? Is it seeking further Government assistance or is it a viable concern? My hon. Friend has taken a great interest, and Ministers have visited the factory. Perhaps my hon. Friend will say something about it because those employed in the aircraft industry show anxiety because of the cloud over the industry with the present crisis of oil and fuel and the likely effect this might have on employment in Queen's Island, Belfast.
What plans have the Government for dealing with the oil crisis? We in Northern Ireland are 90 per cent. reliant on oil for the production of electricity. That is much higher than the national average. A new power station is being built and others are planned. These new power stations should be capable of burning either oil or solid fuel. Have the Government carried out research into the cost of making the power stations dual purpose, so that Northern Ireland will not


suffer if the current shortage of oil continues for many years? Oil is vital to the economy of Northern Ireland.
On Class VIII I wish to refer to the repercussions on housing services of the shortage of oil. Many hon. Members have visited Northern Ireland and seen the imaginative slum clearance that is taking place. The old slum houses are being replaced by modern blocks of flats. Many of these are to be centrally heated by oil-fired boilers. If oil is not available, what will be the effect on the persons who are rehoused in these blocks? Will my hon. Friend deal with the heating arrangements—

Mr. Peter Mills: I do not quite understand how I can be concerned with the heating arrangements in the flats. I cannot do anything about the plumbing. Does my hon. Friend mean the fuel supplies?

Mr. McMaster: What I am saying relates not only to blocks of flats but to individual flats and council houses without chimneys. That is a matter of concern. If these houses are to be adequately heated the Government's policy needs to be reviewed in the light of the current oil shortage. Provision should be made for the burning of coal if that is the cheapest and most economical fuel available.
There are two aspects. There is the heating of individual houses and the provision of a chimney and fireplace, and there is the central provision of warm water and heat from central boilers. Can those central boilers be dual purpose?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton) Order, this is very interesting but we are getting a little wide of the point at issue. It is a question of the funds rather than of the structure of the houses.

Mr. McMaster: I should like to see some additional money provided under Class VIII, 2, because of the needs of my constituents. I hope that I shall not be prevented from addressing the House on that matter.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must debate what is in the order and not what is not in the order.

Mr. McMaster: I bow to your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not know how the money set out in the order will be spent. Perhaps some will be allocated in the way I suggest. Will my hon. Friend tell me whether that is the case—and, if not, why not? Those are the main points of concern for my constituents. With those remarks, I welcome the order.

11.31 p.m.

Mr. J. D. Concannon: After hearing the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster), I can understand you feeling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that there is little left to be said. For an Englishman trying to interest himself in Irish affairs, I can understand that sometimes it is pretty hard going. It does not get any easier when we have to listen to the hon. Member for Belfast, East making the same speech time after time.
Class III, 3 and 4, relate to expenses of criminal prosecutions and other law charges, including the expenses of civil litigation, and salaries and allowances. Is any of that money available to British Servicemen and their counsel when they go to Northern Ireland to obtain compensation.
When the hon. Member for Belfast, East talks about people in Northern Ireland being murdered, killed, wounded and disfigured, he must remember that there are few English hon. Members whose constituents have not similarly suffered. It concerns many English hon. Members that soldiers must go back to Northern Ireland to present their cases in the Northern Ireland courts.
In that way Northern Ireland seems to be treated as a separate entity, yet we hear talk that Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom. Has the Department considered the position of British troops who have been terribly injured and maimed who have to go back to Northern Ireland to present their cases? There must be some way of getting their cases heard and dealt with in England.
I try to advise my constituents when they come to me with their problems. I think of Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom. I suddenly find that it has separate laws or rules. Last weekend one of my constituents told me that he wanted to go to live in Northern


Ireland. He has never been there. I do not know why he wants to go there. He has a flat to go to. I told him that it is an integral part of the United Kingdom. He has now discovered that he must find himself a job, but he has not obtained a work permit.
We know that the traffic from Northern Ireland to England is uninterrupted, yet when my constituent wants to go to Northern Ireland to live and to work he finds that he must have a work permit. As an Englishman, I try my best to understand Northern Ireland affairs. It would help me to know in which ways Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom. We should consider its affairs carefully and try to bring them into line with the rest of the United Kingdom. I do not want to say anything else ; it has all been said and covered. Obviously I do not expect an answer on these two points tonight, but I hope that somebody, somewhere, is looking into them.

11.35 p.m.

Mr. James Molyneaux: I welcome the support that the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) has given to the plea which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) and I and some of my colleagues have made time and time again for complete integration into the United Kingdom. We look forward to having the hon. Member's support in the Lobby next time we bring forward an amendment with that end in view.
On Class III, item 2 "For police services", I gladly support what has been said on both sides tonight about the need to encourage recruitment to the Royal Ulster Constabulary and to the RUC Reserve. Like other hon. Members, I wonder whether the Government have finally set their face against any special allowances in view of the hazardous duties undertaken by the police in Northern Ireland. When we last pressed this point we were told that there were difficulties caused by phase 2 and the rest. Now that we are entering phase 3, could not the Police Authority at least be encouraged to examine ways and means of helping these gallant officers and the men who do their bidding?
If I might mention the problem of police accommodation, I have in my constituency

in South Antrim two important RUC stations, one at Antrim and one at Lisburn. Both are now divisional headquarters. Because of the age of the buildings, both are now unsuitable and very inadequate for their present purpose—or, indeed, for any purpose. I would like the Ministry of Home Affairs to be asked to speed up the replacement of both buildings by stations which would provide much more civilised and efficient conditions.
In Class IV, item 7 relates to health and personal social services. As a former vice-chairman of the hospital management committee who was demobbed on 30th September as a result of the reorganisation, I have refrained from criticising the new structure which came into being on 1st October. I was prepared to give it a long honeymoon, and I still am, but I want to be assured that everything possible will be done to allay the fears of those with a special interest in mental health and special care and to see that every effort will be made concerning these two vulnerable categories of patients to ensure that they do not in any way suffer from the restructuring.
Under Class V, item 2—grants to education and library services—one has evidence to suggest that the performance of the new boards is somewhat patchy. For example, in the area of the Western Board one suspects that there is some delay in reaching staff establishments. This may be why, for example, the primary school in Limavady, County Londonderry, which under the old county education committee was provided with a very efficient library service, has now had that facility withdrawn.
I think also that the new board offices suffer from being rather short of equipment, particularly telephone equipment. Efficiency would be improved if this point could be looked into.
I turn to the subject of agriculture which is dealt with in Class VI. I wonder whether anything can be done to mitigate the still increasing costs of animal feeding stuffs. Earlier in the autumn hope was expressed that there might be a downward trend in prices, but while some prices have dropped others have risen. The net picture is that there has been no overall reduction.


Only today there are alarming indications that prices are likely to start to rise again. Maize is already up in price and the price of protein has risen considerably. If grant assistance cannot be afforded under this heading, then it is essential that in today's price review calculations should not be based, as formerly, solely on differences in returns but should take account of the substantial increases in food costs which have affected Northern Ireland farmers far more than farmers in the rest of the United Kingdom.
I hope that account will be taken of the effects of the monopoly situation which affects the supply of raw materials for fertilizers. The situation led to an increase in cost to Ulster farmers amounting to over £1 million in the current year. I hope that this point will not be lost sight of during the review.
Under the heading of animal diseases, the most worrying problem is that of the serious outbreak of fowl pest which is currently affecting the eastern part of the Province. I want to pay a sincere tribute to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Ministry of Agriculture for their speedy and efficient handling of this emergency situation. The measures necessary have thrown a great strain on the veterinary staff, and we have admired the degree of flexibility which has permitted the recruitment of people with a knowledge of the poultry industry to assist in the formidable task of slaughtering, vaccination and prevention.
On the problem of compensation, I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) queried the increase, because I was hoping to press my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for sympathetic consideration to be given to compensation claims during the emergency. There is a serious problem for egg producers whose flocks have been in production for some time but which are still earning the first profit those owners have made for years. In many cases the farmer is relying on these final months of production to pull his undertaking out of the red. But if he is compensated only at the market value of the bird, the carcase price, he could find himself making a substantial net loss on the whole undertaking. I

hope that sympathetic consideration will be given to such cases.
Turkey producers are also seriously affected. As my hon. Friend the Minister will know, this is very much a seasonal venture, and if things go wrong in the next vital three weeks the loss to farmers could be staggering. With the increase in the cost of feeding stuffs since mid-summer, they could be greatly at risk as a result of the outbreak. Therefore, I trust that the greatly increased cost of feeding stuffs which have gone into producing birds to near market readiness will be taken into consideration when compensation is assessed.
I trust that in the matter of licensing birds—I am still mainly on turkeys—within vaccination areas, care will be taken to avoid placing producers at the mercy of large monopolies. In the case of small producers whose markets consist of individual orders for delivery within their own locality, I hope it will be possible to devise a simple system involving the provision of a list of those orders which have been placed during the year so that it will not be necessary to obtain a licence for every transaction.
There are many other matters of vital concern to a considerable number of people in Northern Ireland in this order. When the Parliament of Northern Ireland was in being, these matters could have been raised with all the responsible Ministers present. My hon. Friend, as always, has carried the whole burden with ability and courtesy but, in the very nature of things, our scrutiny must necessarily be rather limited. But I hope that I shall not be thought presumptuous if I conclude by saying that we express our gratitude to hon. Members on both sides of the House for their part in this limited operation, and I trust that our combined efforts will be of some benefit to the people of Northern Ireland.

11.45 p.m.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: I shall not detain the House for more than two minutes. I wish to ask my hon. Friend only three questions.
Clearly the decrease of £3,000 in respect of police services seems incredible at the time when the RUC is so hard pressed. I want especially to underline the remarks about police barracks, because such of them as I have seen would


have done rather well to have had the £3,000 spent on them.
My second question, also about the police, arises from what the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) said. It concerns the block grant. Does this mean that the police will be paid by the Ulster Executive, or will they be paid in some other way? Is it a case of he who pays the piper calling the tune, or does someone pay the piper, with someone else calling the tune?
My final question relates to the Agent for Northern Ireland in Great Britain. It is only a small sum of £35,000. But I feel that he may be a left-over of the former political structure in Northern Ireland. Can my hon. Friend say what is the task of the Agent for Northern Ireland in Great Britain? What does the Berkeley Street office now fulfil as an office for Northern Ireland? I hate to suggest putting anyone out of a job, but is there any need for him to have that job in the future? Is there any parallel with what he once did for Northern Ireland or with anything which may be given to Scotland or Wales?

11.47 p.m.

Captain L. P. S. Orr: I join in the tributes which have been paid to the Minister. I am sorry for him, having at this late hour to deal with such an enormous range of subjects, and I shall not add to his burden by further detailed comment about the various heads of expenditure in the order.
I rise only to reinforce the question asked by the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) about the financial arrangements which will be with the new Executive and about how this kind of operation will be handled in the future.
I have referred to HANSARD of 24th May, and in many ways it adds to the confusion. I do not imagine that my hon. Friend will be able to answer the question tonight, but perhaps he will be good enough once again to draw the attention of the Government to it and to say that between now and next Thursday we shall require considerable clarification of the position.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: May we again reinforce this point? On the detail of it, we do not expect a reply

tonight. But, given the discussions which are taking place this weekend, if next Thursday we are to discuss sensibly the devolution order we must have more information. It may be that this can be done in some detail by means of a Written Answer, but we must be clear about what the financial arrangements are before we can discuss devolution. We were promised that these matters would be spelled out. For some reason, they have not been. But this is a most important point, and we support what the hon. and gallant Gentleman is saying.

Captain Orr: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) for that intervention. I would add little to reinforce it, except to draw attention to what was said by the Minister on 24th May :
Under Clause 16, the Secretary of State will take power to make a general grant-in-aid of Northern Ireland's revenue resources. This is a continuation of the system introduced in the Northern Ireland (Financial Provisions) Act 1972. Under the Bill, the grant-in-aid will be capable of comprising the separate special payments which are to come to an end, as I described earlier. Although Northern Ireland for the foreseeable future will undoubtedly require a large grant-in-aid to supplement its revenue, the assumption of the cost of excepted and reserved matters in London, dealing with law and order, and compensation for the time being, coupled with plausible alterations in tax yields and other feasible changes, like the growth of payments from European sources, suggest that the new financial arrangements should include provision for a possible—I emphasise, only possible—deduction from Northern Ireland's proper share of tax proceeds."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th May 1973 ; Vol 857, c. 795.]
If my hon. Friend could tell me what that means it would be of great assistance. But I am satisfied that not even he, with all his acumen and skill, could tell me what it means.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Despite the incomprehensibility of what my hon. and gallant Friend has read to the House, is it his understanding that the grant-in-aid mentioned in that passage is the same as the annual sum mentioned in paragraph 83(b) on page 21 of the White Paper?

Captain Orr: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That was the very question that I was about to ask : is this the same? We want to know whether there will be an analogy between the Northern Ireland Executive and the local authorities


in this country. I understand that at present there is an annual grant, or whatever it is called—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Order. I think that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is straying a little wide of the order. I am sure that he does not mean to do so. Perhaps he will give a little attention to the point.

Captain Orr: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The point is that if next Thursday we are to have the devolution order this will be the last of these appropriation orders. I am grateful for the latitude that has been shown, but I thought that you might allow us to ask what is to replace this procedure when the time comes. I do not want to labour the point. Perhaps my hon. Friend will add to what I have said on this matter. When my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) asked what the formula would be, he said that there was no reason why there should not be consultation. We want to know whether the Secretary of State, in negotiation in the normal process in the Cabinet, will get the money and will then allocate it or whether there is to be a system of consultation with the Executive as there is with local authorities in this country in the same position. That is all I wish to add to reinforce what was said by the hon. Member for Leeds, South, so that we may know the position before next Thursday.

11.54 p.m.

Mr. Peter Mills: I have some task before me to answer all the points that have been made, so I will speak fairly fast to try to cover them. I understand that the hour and a half will be up in about 25 minutes, but I will do my best.
The hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr Orme) welcomed the order. He was quite right that if devolution takes place this will be the last budget, as it were. Once we get the Executive under way, this can be dealt with. My hon. Friends are right to say that there is not enough time to debate these points, and that time is needed in the Assembly. This is what we are working for and why we are asking for their support. This is what they want and they are right to say that proper debate should take place.
The decrease of £3,000 which has been referred to is a reduction in the total income for the police vote for the year. It arises from a slight adjustment in the estimate for pensions contributions by policemen, and is not significant in itself. In the "sums granted" column there is a supplementary estimate for the police of £2,670,000. This is an increase in expenditure. It is just that the police vote did not get as much as had been expected from contributions.
I should be out of order to go into the question of the Common Market, but 100,000 people in Northern Ireland have benefited from the cheaper butter scheme. The increase borne by the British grant-in-aid is £169 million. It would be best if I wrote to the hon. Member on this point. Expenditure in Northern Ireland is £644 million, income £383 million and the deficiency of £258 million is met partly by the grant-in-aid.
I can understand hon. Members being concerned about future financial arrangements. The Government are committed to bringing forward a White Paper setting out the financial arrangements. At the moment and until devolution, we are operating under the system set out in Cmnd. 4498 published in June 1972, entitled "Northern Ireland—Financial Arrangements and Legislation". The White Paper makes it clear that the Government will discuss these arrangements with the new institutions and authorities in Northern Ireland before they are finalised—particularly the proposals for the control of public expenditure. These discussions are not yet concluded, and it follows that the White Paper will not be published until devolution. I will get this situation clarified before Thursday, although I cannot promise the House that it will be included in the speech. I hope that that clears up the point. The hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) talked about the decrease of £3,000. I hope that I have made the position clear. There will be no slackening in recruiting or in providing equipment, and to improve these will be our main aim. A lot of time and energy are being spent in seeking the necessary recruits, and there will be advertising.
I now want to turn to my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. 
McMaster), who raised over 14 points. I will try desperately to answer some of


them, but I assure him that they will all be covered by a letter. There was a point made about Class I, "Sums Granted £35,000". This represents increased rates of pay for existing staff. Under Class II, item 4, "Sums Granted £15,900", this represents loan charges on buildings taken over from local authorities. I can assure my hon. Friend that expenditure is not going down. There will also be a spring supplementary in which the amount will be fairly considerable.
While I am on this subject, it is important to explain the various columns in this order. In all cases, the sums granted—that is, the first column—are increases in expenditure. Any increases in appropriations in aid are increases in income, and are taken into account before asking for the extra sums granted. Any decreases in appropriations in aid mean that the sums granted are increased by that amount. I hope that that clears up that point.
As regards control of the police, we have given the assurance that the RUC will remain under our control. On the question of senior officers having to come over to this country for a certain time, if my hon. Friend will excuse me I will see that he has a letter setting out the position very clearly. I will look into what my hon. Friend said about complaints, but, from my own knowledge, there are very few complaints about the police. Certainly, there will be changes and improvements in the organisation of the police. These are going on all the time, and I am sure my hon. Friend will welcome that fact. The organisation of the police is not something that is stationary. Morale is very good, and I find it improving as I go around the various police stations. I am afraid that I have forgotten the point about agriculture.

Mr. McMaster: It was a misreading of the increase in the appropriations in aid which has already been covered.

Mr. Mills: That is very helpful. Short Brothers, are doing an excellent job and I am sure that we have every confidence in them. They seem to be highly competitive with their Skyvans. Harland and Wolff have a certain amount of problems due to the shortage of steel and other

factors, but there is a great programme of modernisation going on and, again, I have confidence there.
Turning to the oil position in Northern Ireland, which caused my hon. Friend considerable concern, I spoke to my hon. Friend the Minister of State a few days ago, and I can assure him that he has these matters well in hand and I am sure he will note my hon. Friend's concern about this matter. I understand that the position is reasonable. As regards the flats and houses, and provision for coal instead of reliance on oil, I hope that the authorities and the builders will note my hon. Friend's remarks, because this is obviously an important point. I, for one, still use the old-fashioned wood and logs and I do not rely on oil or on coal. But I am sure that the point will be taken note of by the authorities.
I now come to the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) whom we welcome to this debate. After the many orders that I have had the privilege of moving, it is nice to see a new face. Whether he is whipping, sitting down or speaking, he is very welcome. He made three important points, especially the one about whether soldiers need to go back to Northern Ireland. I will try to find out something about that aspect, because there is something in the point he made about a man who has been severely wounded and shocked having to go back to give evidence. I should like to look into that point.
Regarding the work permit and the future, that point will also be noted. One of the first things that happened when I arrived in Northern Ireland was that one person there—not one of my hon. Friends here tonight—had the sauce to ask whether I had a work permit. I had not got one, though I was able to do some fairly hard work over there.
My hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) raised the question of the special allowances for the RUC. Pay for the RUC is a matter for negotiation in the Police Council for the United Kingdom. The Police Council has made it clear that it would wish to make some monetary recognition of the special circumstances in which the RUC operates at present. The pay code for stage 3 provides for a new pay limit and, in addition, a flexibility margin and premiums for unsocial hours. While the


Government have great sympathy for the long hours and strain under which the RUC operates and had the problem very much in mind when drafting the stage 3 code, it finally proved impossible to write in any extra provision beyond the improved flexibility without seriously breaking the integrity of the code.
However, before there are too many moans from the Opposition, I want to point out that stage 3 provides some scope for worthwhile increases for the police forces generally, and the flexibility margin is available for those engaged in pay negotiations. That covers the point, but obviously it will not satisfy everyone.

Mr. Orme: I have discussed this matter with Mr. Stanage of the Police Federation, after he had attended a recent meeting of the Joint Police Federation of England and Wales on being invited over from Northern Ireland. The Police Federation is highly dissatisfied with this arrangement. We think that it is wrong for the Government to play about with phase 3 in the United Kingdom, but doing it in Northern Ireland and trying to square the circle is not working. I urge the Minister to tell his right hon. Friends that this is not good enough. It is a barrier to the improvement of conditions within the RUC and the fire service.

Mr. Mills: My right hon. Friend and those concerned will note what the hon. Gentleman has said. But this is some progress in that there is flexibility and the matter of unsocial hours.

Mr. Molyneaux: Will my hon. Friend accept from me the view, which I hope is shared by all who have had experience of police activities in Northern Ireland, that every hour on duty could be classed as an unsocial hour?

Mr. Mills: That is a worthwhile point, which again will be considered ; but I cannot go any further than I have on the matter.
Regarding the future of mental health work in Northern Ireland, every effort will be made to continue the good work that is being done. On a personal level, my wife has visited many of the establishments concerned and has always returned with the view that they are of a very high standard and that a tremendous

amount of work is being done for the people involved. All concerned are to be congratulated. That work will continue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South opened the whole subject of agriculture and animal feeding stuffs. I could talk for about five hours on that subject, but I cannot do that tonight. I have looked into the matter very carefully. There are difficulties because of Northern Ireland's remoteness but Northern Ireland is still receiving considerable extra aid. There is still the differential because of the distance, the sea and so on. But we are looking into the matter. If my hon. Friends will help with devolution and getting the Executive under way, probably a new Minister of Agriculture will carry on where I have left off. [Interruption.] For all that, I am sure he will do a first-class job.
My hon. Friend is wrong about protein. The price of soya meal has come down from a peak of nearly £300 a ton to about £100 a ton. The problem is that that fall is not being reflected in the compound feeding prices because merchants have bought forward, but it will be reflected in time.
I thank my hon. Friend for the tribute he paid to my Ministry with regard to fowl pest. We shall consider the whole problem of compensation carefully and sympathetically. Fowl pest is a major problem over there. Although great efforts are being made to contain it, obviously quite a number of people will suffer. Every farmer must take the greatest care that the disease does not spread, by seeing that there are no intruders and that precautions are taken.
We welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson) to these debates. He asked who would pay the police after devolution. They will be paid by the Northern Ireland Office. It is not a matter with which the Executive or the Northern Ireland people will be concerned.
I hope that the Northern Ireland Agent in Great Britain will continue. I cannot pay a high enough tribute to him. I have worked closely with him in promoting seed potatoes, milk products and all sorts of other things for sale outside


Northern Ireland. He does a worthwhile job in London to further the exports of Northern Ireland.
I think that I have covered most of the points raised by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr).
This has been a long debate. I have probably not covered everything that I should, but I shall look closely at HANSARD and try to deal with what has been omitted.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Appropriation (No. 3) Northern Ireland) Order 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on 15th November, be approved.

NORTHERN IRELAND (LOCAL GOVERNMENT REORGANISATION)

12.15 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Peter Mills): I beg to move,
That the Local Government Reorganisation (Consequential Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on 8th November, be approved.
The reorganisation of local government in Northern Ireland came into effect on 1st October. As a result, the former local authorities were abolished and their functions transferred either to the 26 new district councils or to various Government Departments in Northern Ireland. This order, which is consequential upon the transfer of those functions, amends certain Acts of the United Kingdom to take account of this reorganisation. Among the amendments which will be achieved by the order, there are three matters to which I should like to refer in some detail.
First, as hon. Members will have observed, Article 2 makes the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland the electoral registration officer and returning officer for constituencies in Northern Ireland which return members to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Before 1st October 1973, the statutory duties of electoral registration under the Representation of the People Acts were carried out by the Town Clerk of the County Borough of Belfast and the secretaries of

each of the six county councils. As a result of the reorganisation of local government, these appointments no longer exist, and it is therefore necessary to make alternative provision. Since the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland already has the responsibility of preparing the electoral register for Northern Ireland assembly and local elections, it seems right that he should be given the duty of preparing the register for United Kingdom parliamentary elections. Indeed, the register prepared is in practice a combined register containing the names of all persons in Northern Ireland entitled to vote at United Kingdom parliamentary, Northern Ireland assembly or local elections.
The returning officers for the 12 Westminster constituencies in Northern Ireland are, under existing law, the under-sheriffs of Belfast and of the six counties. These officers are practising solicitors in private practice. I should like to take this opportunity to commend publicly the excellent work they have done as returning officers over the years.
However, since there is a chief electoral officer responsible for the organisation and conduct of Northern Ireland assembly and local elections, it is appropriate that this officer should also be entrusted with the task of conducting elections in the Westminster constituencies in Northern Ireland.
I turn now to Article 3 of the order which relates to the appointment of high sheriffs for the county boroughs of Belfast and Londonderry. Under present legislation, the procedure for the appointment of sheriffs for the county boroughs of Belfast and Londonderry differs from that in the counties. Nominations for office in the county boroughs were, prior to 1st October, made by the county borough councils—namely, the Belfast Corporation and, in the case of Londonderry, the Londonderry Development Commission, whereas in the counties nominations are made by the Crown judge at assize in each county.
In addition to the differing procedure for appointment of sheriffs, the period of office for sheriffs of county boroughs is different from that of sheriffs of counties. Although the term of office is one year for both, in the case of county boroughs the term runs from June to June, whilst in the counties the term is the calendar year.
As a result of the reorganisation of local government and the consequent separation of the new local government districts from the judicial areas of counties and county boroughs, it is felt appropriate to amend the law so that the method of appointment and period of office of sheriffs of county boroughs will be the same as that for the counties. This, then, is what Article 3 seeks to achieve.
Article 4 extends to Enterprise Ulster and three other public bodies those provisions of the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973 which prohibit discrimination in the public sector on religious or political grounds or the requirement of certain oaths and undertakings as a condition of employment.
The remaining provision of the order deals with the consequential and more technical amendments of United Kingdom enactments to which I have earlier referred.

12.20 a.m.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: This is the 54th item of legislation that we have dealt with since the temporary provisions legislation. I throw in that interesting statistic because it bears out some of the points that have been made from both sides of the House about the difficulties of discussing Northern Ireland legislation. I am sure that we all look forward to the legislation we shall have next Thursday. We hope to see the power being devolved, the Executive established and much that has been discussed in this House being discussed properly in the new Executive and Assembly in Northern Ireland.
Therefore, though this is perhaps the last piece of legislation before the devolution order, it is one of the sweetest we have ever had and is certainly the sweetest of the three we have dealt with tonight. The first was obviously distasteful to all hon. Members. The second dealt with the "nuts and bolts" and, while important, was not easy to get excited over. This order is of great importance in that it extends the field of human rights. However, whether or not there was to be devolution, this order would still have had to be discussed in this House.
It is a consequence of the Northern Ireland Constitution Act which became law this year. As the Under-Secretary

indicated, the order is in many ways a very technical matter, dealing with the provisions consequent upon reorganisation of local government in the Six Counties, particularly in Articles 2 and 3. I should like to take this opportunity of joining the Under-Secretary in not only congratulating the under-sheriffs for the work that they have done as electoral returning officers, but to congratulate the Chief Electoral Returning Officer of Northern Ireland and his staff whose work we have observed with admiration over the last year in connection with the border poll, even if we did not like the poll. We congratulate them too upon the fine work that was done for the elections to the Assembly, work which would have been good in any circumstances, but which in the particular difficulties of the Six Counties in the last few years is remarkable.
Article 4 is the most important part of the order because it deals with an extension of human rights and the prevention of religious and political discrimination. It extends Sections 19 and 21 of the Constitution Act. Section 19 deals with discrimination against any person or class of persons on grounds of religious or political belief. It is well worth reading again, because it is particularly important to the minority population. It says :
It shall be unlawful for a Minister of the Crown, a member of the Northern Ireland Executive or other person … to discriminate, or aid, induce or incite another to discriminate, in the discharge of functions relating to Northern Ireland against any person or class of persons on the ground of religious belief or political opinion.
Section 21 deals with the particularly contentious subject of oaths which have caused so much trouble in the past. It says,
it shall be unlawful for an authority or body to which this section applies to require any person to take an oath, make an undertaking in lieu of an oath or make a declaration, as a condition of his being appointed to or acting as a member of that authority or body, or of serving with or being employed under that authority or body.
These were things that many people in the north of Ireland and in this House have striven for. The provisions extend the area of protection, as the Under-Secretary indicated, to many important matters, but particularly to the four area boards for health and social services. The order does not mention the area


boards for education and libraries. Has similar provision been made for members of those boards? If so in which piece of legislation is it contained? If no provision has been made, why not? If it is intended to introduce a further order why are two pieces of legislation to be brought in when one would do?
One of the purposes of Article 4 is to prohibit discrimination in the employment sector covered by the Health and Social Services Board. That is very proper. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Marlyn Rees) has been in correspondence with the former Secretary of State concerning allegations of possible discrimination in the Western Area Board in relation to the selection of administrative staff in the public health sphere. The allegation, basically, was that no member of the minority was given an appointment and that when the reorganisation was taking place no member of the minority was sent on a training course so as to become eligible for appointment. The right hon. Gentleman replied to my hon. Friend outlining the procedures followed and claimed first, that the area boards are reasonably representative of both communities and, secondly, that the proper procedures were followed and an independent assessor was present. He claimed also that the recommendation for attendance on the training courses was made by the Departments concerned within the board's area and there was no set procedure for selection.
The person who originally wrote to my hon. Friend has sent a further letter in which it is stated that, first, all members of the interviewing panel were non-Catholics, second, that the independent assessor had spent at least five years in a senior capacity at the Royal College of Nursing, Belfast, and, third, that all the people who had power to make recommendations for training courses were non-Catholic.
There the matter rests. Doubtless there will be further correspondence from the Secretary of State to my hon. Friend, with, perhaps, copies to me. There may be no substance in these allegations. I mention the case because it indicates the type of problem we are seeking to overcome. Because we are

concerned about it we feel that a lot of the good work that has gone on, and a lot of the legislation we have enacted, may be observed in the letter but not in the spirit. The explanation in this case may be that this situation arose because of an accident of history, perhaps because there were no suitable members of the minority to go on these courses, perhaps because none applied or perhaps because the degree of excellence of the appointees justified, on any consideration, their being appointed. But the grievance is there and felt to be there.

Mr. James Molyneaux: Will the hon. Gentleman accept my assurance that during the time I served with the Northern Ireland Hospital Authority I sat on many appointment panels and on those occasions when I took the trouble to check, I did not do so normally, I discovered that the minority was actually in a majority on the panel by 3–1?

Mr. McNamara: I can accept what the hon. Gentleman says. All I am saying is that we have a system which, apparently on the surface is fair—I do not doubt the Government's good faith over this system—but in looking at the mechanics of what happened it seems there were no set procedures for people to apply for training. It was left to local discretion, or so it is alleged. It is said that the independent assessor was not independent because of previous association with the Six Counties. Here is a matter which needs careful examination.
The lesson I was about to draw from this situation was that there must be a more careful examination of the procedures and the personnel taking part in these procedures to ensure that possible causes of grievance, which can be used and exacerbated by evil men, are not used to wreck the work that we in this House and the Executive-designate are trying to do for Northern Ireland.

Mr. Molyneaux: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the course he is advocating brings with it all the evils of the system we are trying to move away from? Is he not suggesting that we have to scrutinise all appointment panels, all


forms of committees, assessors and so on and grade and balance them on grounds of religion? In other words, such persons would be appointed because of their religion when religion should not enter into it.

Mr. McNamara: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I do not want a "statutory Catholic", a "statutory Republican", a "statutory Provo" or whatever. We still cannot get away from the situation that we are trying to overcome some difficult history in this situation and in an area like the western area, which is peculiarly sensitive, we should take particular care. That is all I am suggesting. This arises purely and simply because although one can understand what is contained in Section 18, subsection (1), of the Act and Article 4 in this order, unless the spirit is followed as well as the letter we shall be in a difficult situation.
Some of the best constitutions in the world exist in eastern Europe, beyond the Iron Curtain, but I should rather live here without a written constitution than in any of those countries. We are making an important point. Article 4 concerns important matters of human rights, but between Sections 19 and 21 in the Act comes Section 20 which establishes the Standing Advisory Committee on Human Rights to which Mr. Victor Feather has been appointed Chairman. This is an important body and we congratulate the Government on their wise and imaginative choice.
There is no greater believer in fairness, respect for the proper and correct administration of the law and the importance of human dignity than a trade unionist, and Mr. Feather will be quick to advise the Government on any political or religious discrimination which he suspects is being perpetrated against any section or person in the community of Northern Ireland.
Similarly, with the appointment of Mr. McGonagle as Commissioner for Complaints. He has a distinguished history in the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union—

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: Can the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) relate this to the order?

Mr. McNamara: With the greatest respect, I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman was the last person to suggest to others that they might be outside the rules of order, but in any event, I expect you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to call me to order, not the hon. Gentleman.
This is an important matter concerning human rights and an important point on that is the appointment of the Advisory Commission on Human Rights. The Chairman of that Commission is Mr. Victor Feather and we are now concerned, if I may finish my compliment to the Government—a thing I rarely pay to a Tory Government—that they have, in the appointment of Mr. McGonagle, again shown imagination. He will be a serious loss to his own trade union in Ireland as I know because I spoke to the General Secretary last Mondey, but he has all our good wishes.
Now we have a chairman of the Advisory Commission, when will the other members be appointed? When is the Commission due to start work? In the Queen's Speech it was also announced that there was to be legislation on discrimination in private employment in Northern Ireland. Can the Minister tell us when we are likely to see the Bill?
We all know how difficult it is to reorganise local government. We should like from this side of the House to congratulate the Ministers concerned and all the officials in Government and in local authorities in Northern Ireland on achieving the reorganisation of local government so smoothly in spite of the difficulties and on achieving it well in advance of England, Scotland and Wales.
Finally, a new Minister is going there, Mr. Austin Currie, a friend of many hon. Members. We know that he is going into a good department and that he will acquit himself well. We hope that he will be a distinguished Minister in the most important enterprise that he and his colleagues will be undertaking.
I support the order.

12.35 p.m.

Mr. James Molyneaux: We would all willingly give our support to any method likely to deal competently with legislation as an alternative


to the Order in Council procedure, but the new vehicle on which some had pinned such high hopes at Stormont has been having a stormy running-in period and we may be excused for having doubts.
Article 2 gives the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland power to take over the function of the former electoral registration officer in each county. I do not wish to criticise the electoral officer, his deputies or his staff, and I subscribe to much of what has been said by the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Hull, North (Mr. McNamara).
I understand what the Government are trying to do. For example, for the first time they are providing in the register the street and road numbers, which is an even more complicated operation in the new lists and registers. This will undoubtedly be of great help to the political parties when they are engaged in electioneering. In a much wider sense it may provide a comprehensive directory for each constituency in Northern Ireland.
On the minus side there has been some confusion, possibly because too much has been attempted. One example is the reliance placed upon the return of registration forms in a year when the electorate are weary of postal voting and the complicated apparatus involved. I know of constituents who, when asked whether they had completed their forms, said "We are having nothing to do with this postal voting ; we burnt ours." Only about two-thirds of the forms were returned, and when it became necessary to augment the system and return to the original system of canvassers it was impossible to include the additional names in the electoral list published on 30th November. The additional names appear in supplementary lists which are held at the office of the appropriate deputy registration officer.
Because of this the chief electoral officer is reluctant to issue individual claim forms and prefers that party agents and other interested people should take lists of persons omitted to the various offices to check them against the supplementary list. It is necessary to furnish the people who have been omitted with a claim form, which will have to be completed and returned to

the deputy registration officer by 15th September. As one who had the chore of seeing that this was done in former years, I doubt whether this added complication will make it possible for the returns to be in by the required date. I hope that the Minister responsible will allow some latitude to take account of this complication.
This system might possibly work in a city constituency, but it presents problems in a large rural constituency. When the Unionist agent for South Antrim called for his lists he was given only 18 names for an electorate of 130,000. Is it possible to issue the claim forms on a less restricted scale, possibly by placing some in each Post Office?
Article 2(b) makes the chief electoral officer the returning officer for each constituency. I assume that that in practice means that the deputy electoral officer would be the returning officer in the constituency in which he operated. The problem is that the returning officer's area does not coincide with the boundaries of the deputy electoral officer. The requirement of the Representation of the People Act 1969 is that the local boundaries shall not be broken unnecessarily except in special cases.
It is the local authorities which have made nonsense of the constituency boundaries. With the reorganisation they have in practically all cases completely disrupted the old lines of demarcation. It might have been a far happier solution to have retained the well-tried organisation which is based on the Westminster constituencies which were drawn up by a commissioner appointed by the House.
Bearing in mind that presumably the registers will be published every year in their parliamentary form—that is, showing the old polling areas and boundaries as defined again by Westminster—I imagine that the new local government register with the new-look areas will be published only once in four years. It seems strange that the interests of Stormont and Westminster should be subordinated to those of local authorities composed, it is true, of many worthy people but with limited powers.
I hope that in due course the teething troubles will be overcome and the priorities sorted out.

12.42 a.m.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: I do not intend to keep the House long. As the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) chose to mention the extension of the provisions of Sections 19 and 21 of the Constitution Act, and made heavy weather of doing so, I draw the attention of the House to the fact that we have had the Ombudsman in Northern Ireland and he has looked into complaints of the sort to which the hon. Gentleman referred for a number of years.
The Ombudsman, the same person who performed the same function in the United Kingdom, is a highly respected ex-senior civil servant. He found that few cases were referred to him. In a negligible number of cases was there any decision. I feel that the hon. Member for Salford, West has made heavy weather of the order. Perhaps unwittingly he has added a little to the undermining of the establishment in Northern Ireland. I personally regret that we have had to listen to such an extent to a matter which has such little substance.

Mr. McNamara: The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) should not heap my sins upon my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme). My constituency is Kingston upon Hull, North. The very point which the hon. Gentleman was making about undermining the system and the dangers involved was the point which I was seeking to make.

12.44 a.m.

Mr. Peter Mills: I should like to reply to some of the points which have been raised in this short but interesting debate. I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) say that he welcomed the order. I am sure he is right, as is the whole House.
Having listened to the various points which have been raised, I am most disappointed that no hon. Member has asked about the sheriffs and their duties, because I was longing to mention that these are set out in the Sheriffs (Ireland) Act 1920, which states that one of their functions is exercised in connection with oyer and terminer—that is, to hear and determine. I was sorry that the point was not raised, but I have made the

duties quite clear. It is important that people should know.
I also welcome what the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North said about congratulating the various staff—he is right about this too—and also what he said about the chief electoral officer. It is important that all of us should look upon this as a new start. There is no going back to the past in this whole field. There is new registration and a new chief electoral officer. He has a full-time staff, he is completely independent, and he has a full complement of staff to deal with the problems. I am sure we congratulate the chief electoral officer on what he has done already.
I turn to Article 4, which my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) was right to bring forward, and the extension of human rights. I welcome what my hon. Friend said about Article 4. As regards education and libraries, the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1972 provides for the education and library boards to be added to Schedule 1 to the Commissioner for Complaints Act (Northern Ireland) 1969. Since this article of the order came into effect on 20th March 1973, the boards are clearly within the scope of Section 19 of the Constitution Act. It is, therefore, already in operation.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North touched on the question of the Western Health and Social Services Board and a personal problem. I should like to make a few general points first. My experience in Northern Ireland is that these things are most carefully looked into, certainly in the Ministry with which I have been concerned. We take into account very much the minority. I know that all Ministers watch this point carefully. I am sure the hon. Member would agree that appointment must be made on merit. It does not matter what a person's label is.
I know that there are sensitive areas and sensitive people about this. We have to watch this carefully so that there is no misunderstanding. I only hope that in this new, shall we say, climate many more people will come forward from the minority to offer themselves for these appointments and that we may work together in the future irrespective of our religious label.
I have looked into the case that was mentioned. I do not know whether the hon. Member wants me to go into it in a little more detail, but the article provides that health boards are within the scope of Section 19 of the Constitution Act and the Commissioner for Complaints may, therefore, be asked to investigate a complaint concerning discrimination. I do not think that it happened in the case in question. If the hon. Member wants me to pursue the point further, perhaps he will let me know. I assure the House that we have looked into the matter carefully and that my right hon. Friend has given a reply to the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) on this point.

Mr. McNamara: There has been further correspondence by the person concerned with the Secretary of State—correspondence which perhaps has not yet percolated through to the Under-Secretary of State.

Mr. Mills: The correspondence has not yet reached me, but I am certain a detailed reply will be sent in due course.
Reference has been made to the Chairman of the Advisory Council, and I was asked what other appointments would be made. We are seeking to press ahead with this matter. The matter of a Bill in the private sector is entirely a matter for the Leader of the House and for the Government, and it is not for me as a mere Under-Secretary to enter into those realms.

Mr. McMaster: Will the Under-Secretary accept from me, as somebody who has studied this subject very carefully, that if appointments are made or refused to be made as a result of pressure, then this itself can cause resentment and can do far more harm than good?

Mr. Mills: That may be so, but I can assure my hon. Friend that in my experience in Northern Ireland I have come to realise that people are very sensitive about these matters. The greatest care must be taken, and there is a long history involving people who have these fears.

Captain L. P. S. Orr: On both sides.

Mr. Mills: Yes, I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for

Down, South (Captain Orr) that the fears are on both sides. Therefore, we must tread carefully, but we welcome this as a step forward.
My hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) made a lot of rather technical points about claim forms, lists and local boundaries. I think that at this late hour I shall not attempt to deal with those matters in detail, since my hon. Friend is an expert on those matters and I am not. I promise to write to my hon. Friend and give him the information he seeks.
In commending the order to the House, it only remains for me to thank hon. Members on both sides for their kind remarks to me. I cannot say that I am always happy to be here at this time of the morning, but it was pleasant to hear those things said.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Local Government Reorganisation (Consequential Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on 8th November, be approved.

CIVIL DEFENCE

Ordered,
That the Civil Defence (Planning) Regulations 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on 13th November, be approved.—[Mr. Weatherill.]

Ordered,
That the Civil Defence (Grant) (Amendment) Regulations 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on 13th November be approved.—[Mr. Weatherill.]

Ordered,
That the Civil Defence (General) (Amendment) Regulations 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on 13th November, be approved.—[Mr. Weatherill.]

DIPLOMATIC PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES

Ordered,
That the International Cocoa Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) (No. 2) Order 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on 20th November, be approved.—[Mr. Weatherill.]

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Weatherill.]

HMS "CONWAY"

12.54 a.m.

Captain Walter Elliot: HMS "Conway" was established in 1859. For nearly 11 years she has given valuable service to the nation. During that period many changes have taken place and "Conway" has adapted to the needs of the times.
Credit is due to generations of management committees and shipowners who have recognised the vital contribution made by "Conway" to our maritime interests and who have given their time and money to ensure that the ship has been safeguarded for the nation. Many old boys of "Conway" have achieved great distinction and high office in our national life. Thousands of them have manned the bridges of our ships in peace and in war, and four Victoria Crosses are among the many decorations awarded to them.
The value of the education and training given by "Conway" is not to be measured only by the distinctions achieved in many walks of life by a minority. The value lies in those qualities of self-discipline, initiative, self-reliance and high moral standards which are inculcated into each "Conway" cadet, and each fit him to become a strongpoint in our national life.
Another great strength of "Conway" is that her cadets are drawn from all strata of society and from all income groups. They are welded into a community and they leave the ship equipped to take their places in the modern world with a sense of their obligation to society. Whatever the future of "Conway", that is a vital ingredient, and I for one would not be arguing her case if that ingredient were to be lost.
With those traditions and those records, it is not surprising that nearly 140 Members of Parliament, many among the most distinguished in the House, from all parties and from all parts of Britain, should sign a motion calling on the Government to ensure the continued existence of this unique establishment. It is not surprising that letters should have come not only from this country but from all over the world calling on the Government to save "Conway" for the nation. It is not surprising that a study group set up in 1968, sponsored and chaired

by the Department of Education and Science and composed of representatives from that Department, the Board of Trade, the Cheshire local education authority, the management of the school and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools, should have reached the conclusion after examining the situation that the continuance of "Conway" was in the national interest.
What is surprising is that the Government today, against this weight of opinion, should hesitate about whether to save "Conway". What is surprising is that, with all the tens of millions of pounds given to other educational establishments of all types, the small sum necessary to save "Conway" may not be found. I will examine this position in greater detail.
First, are enough boys coming forward for places at the school? In 1972, the last year before "Conway's" future became in doubt, there were 800 applications for entry. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary should inquire why, of those 800, only some 200 were interviewed of whom 65 were accepted. He should inquire also why from 1969 to 1971 considerable numbers of boys, interviewed and suitable, could not be admitted. So the boys are coming forward.
Secondly, is there a large enough proportion of "Conway" cadets going into the Merchant Navy? Of course, some go into the Royal Navy and the other fighting services. The figures are as follows, and they include both navigation and marine engineer officers. In 1969 there were 72 per cent., in 1970 there were 58 per cent., and in 1971 69 per cent. These are high percentages, and they could be made higher. Taking the crude figures each year these do not appear high, because the total number of cadets at the school is not great. This has been so for decades.
In 1972 the figure was 34 per cent. and in 1973 32 per cent., a sharp drop. But the reason was that by then the axe had been poised by Cheshire. Therefore, the boys were leaving "Conway" to find further education at establishments with a secure future. Indeed, most of the 1972 intake left in 1973. I suspect that the Department of Education and Science has been given some misleading or perhaps


incomplete figures on this issue and that they should be checked.
Therefore, when times were normal at "Conway", a high proportion of cadets was going into the Merchant Navy, and this proportion could be higher.
What are the educational standards? The number of O-levels and A-levels gained are above the national average. Recently a team of "Conway" cadets came second out of all schools in the United Kingdom for scientific endeavour at the Television Science Fair and later won £1,000 at an international exhibition in Holland.
I will quote from one letter of the hundreds that I have received. This is from a Professor Smart, who says :
I know at first hand of Conway's excellent work in the teaching of navigation up to GCE standards, for I examined 50 to 60 cadets annually for roughly a score of years for the Oxford and Cambridge Schools' Examination Board. … I can certify that the Conway cadets were well taught the foundations of navigation and that they achieved—and maintained year by year—a high standard of excellence.
There is no doubt that the educational standards are high.
To summarise, "Conway" has fine traditions and an outstanding record of service to the nation. Demand for places at the school is high. Demand for "Conway" cadets by the shipping lines is strong. A high proportion of the cadets enter the sea services. The standard of education is of a high order.
Why, then, is the continued existence of "Conway" in grave danger? Why, indeed, am I forced to raise this matter on the Floor of the House? Has this great maritime nation got its priorities so wrong that, while supporting every other type of establishment, from ballet schools to bankrupt companies, it will not support the unique nautical training school known as HMS "Conway"? There are two main reasons for the difficulties which have arisen, and these can be remedied.
The study group, chaired and sponsored by the Department of Education and Science, investigated and reported on the situation. To this report the officers of the Department made an important contribution. The whole tenor of the report was that aided status should be given to "Conway". But instead of accepting

the report—here is the vital point—the then Minister said that aided status would be granted provided that Cheshire accepted only pupils from education authorities which were prepared to meet the cost. That was the reason why, in 1969, 59 boys suitable for "Conway" had to be refused admission, and another 58 in 1971. Both groups had to be refused because their local councils would not accept responsibility for them. That was the reason for the decline in the numbers at "Conway".
The requirement by the then Minister was fundamentally at variance with the report of the study group which had indicated clearly that, in accordance with the Education Acts, the Cheshire authority would have the right to admit boys from other areas and to recover fees from the local authorities of those areas.
This situation placed the Cheshire authority and the British Shipping Federation in a difficult position. Cheshire, a local authority responsible to its ratepayers, naturally could not be expected to subsidise a national institution. I have here a letter from a member of the county council education committee. I will not give his name, since it was written to someone else. It gives an idea of what members of the county council think of "Conway". He writes :
I agree with you that it is a tragic loss to the nation and to the students. The closing will be in my view a disaster, because the school was unique, but I think you will realise that, as a committee, one has to consider the position from all points of view, and the ratepayers' in particular.
The county council's motivation is clearly, and rightly from its point of view, the protection of its ratepayers. But in the wider context of the value of HMS "Conway" to the nation and the need to ensure her survival, the position of the ratepayers of one local authority is completely irrelevant. One simple solution, yet not the only one, would be to give "Conway" the full aided status which was recommended by the study group.
The second main difficulty concerns the British Shipping Federation and its link with Cheshire's problem. The BSF as such did not subscribe money to the buildings but it took financial responsibility for "Conway" for a few months in 1968, hoping that the establishment


would be self-supporting. The BSF also took the view that too few cadets were making the Merchant Navy and the Royal Navy their careers. I hope that I have already put the record straight on that point, and I have stressed the special circumstances during the year 1972–73.
The BSF accepts that "Conway" cadets are of high calibre and much sought after. In addition it recognises that in the case of "Conway" cadets there is a lower wastage rate than with entrants from other channels. The BSF also says that, because the pattern and length of cadet training has changed, the advantages enjoyed by "Conway" cadets over other entrants have been eroded.
First, the "Conway" cadets still have an advantage. Second, the high demand from the shipping lines for these cadets exists not because they are better seamen or navigators than the other entrants, although this may well be so as a result of their earlier sea training. The true reason for the demand is the qualities inculcated in them during their training, of which I spoke earlier.
I was sent a brief from the BSF. I do not know who wrote it but it gives much misleading and incomplete information. One paragraph, however, expresses well the feeling in that body :
It must be stressed that it is not the function of the British Shipping Federation to support institutions providing general education. Consequently, any proposal to revert to running 'Conway' as an independent establishment must find support elsewhere.
It appears to say that it has paid out enough money and does not want to give any more. But it does not really mean that it does not support an institution providing general education, because the shipowners have been supporting "Conway" for over 100 years, precisely because the type of general education and training given to the cadets makes them sought after by the shipping lines. The BSF is really saying "We object to paying money to educate and train boys who then depart to a career other than the maritime services."
In my opinion, if there was a problem it was the duty of the management committee appointed by the BSF to take action to solve it. It would not have been difficult and "Conway" would certainly

have played her part. I confess I get the impression that the present board of management and the BSF are not very interested in "Conway". But I shall have more to say about those aspects and about the parts played by the various authorities on another occasion. In any case, I should like to express the hope that our great shipowners, who have a reputation of far-sightedness and public service, will not allow their judgment about "Conway" to be guided solely by the balance sheet. I am sure they will not allow that to happen. After all, the shipping industry gets a lot of help from public sources. A good example in this regard is set by the livery companies of London, the Drapers, the Haberdashers and many others, who support schools not all of whose pupils enter their trades.
To sum up this part of my case, I would say that for over 115 years "Conway" has seen many changes in the requirements of nautical training. The ship has moved with the times, has kept up to date and can most certainly adapt herself to recent changes in the needs of our maritime service if there is a good board of management.
What can be done to make the future of "Conway" secure and beyond doubt? It could be given full aided status. I quote a letter from the Cheshire authorities. It states :
The only possible way of granting a reprieve for the school would be for the Ministry to reverse Miss Alice Bacon's decision and to remove from us the obligation to consult with other authorities and accept boys only with their agreement.
That is one way.
In spite of the problems, which I know all about, it could become a direct grant school. May I briefly quote the views of the Under-Secretary's predecessor, who has now gone to the arts? Talking about direct grant schools, he said this among other things :
We shall continue to cherish, guard and back you so that you may continue in the future, as you have done in the past, to make a contribution to the education of the nation, both notable and profound.
Cannot this maritime nation do that for this unique nautical establishment?
Finally, "Conway" could receive a grant in aid, coupled with an organised appeal for an endowment fund in order that she might become independent.


Should this last course be the only possibility, will my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary give me an undertaking tonight that he will not impede its implementation and that he will help its progress, both legally and financially If he does that, or ensures the future of "Conway" in some other way, I promise him that neither he nor the nation will regret his decision.

1.15 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Timothy Raison): My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carshalton (Captain W. Elliot) has made an honourable and gallant defence of HMS "Conway". One is bound to be impressed by the moving terms in which he has spoken of the school.
I find this a difficult problem with which to deal. My hon. and gallant Friend has set out the basic history of HMS "Conway". There is no need for me to go into that again. We have to start from the fact that in 1968, after many years of distinguished work, the school found itself in financial difficulties and the school governors made a proposal, under Section 13 of the Education Act 1944, that it should be maintained as a voluntary aided school. As we know, that proposal was accepted by the Secretary of State of the day.
Then the maintaining local education authority, Cheshire County Council, after four years' experience of running the school as an aided school, made a proposal and published statutory notices under Section 13(3) of the Education Act, 1944 to cease to maintain the school with effect from 31st August 1974. The local education authority's proposal was made in November 1972, as my hon. and gallant Friend knows. As he also knows, such proposals require approval, with or without modification, by the Secretary of State before they can be put into effect. The Secretary of State is not empowered to consider alternatives to the published proposal.
In accordance with the usual procedure, the Cheshire authority's proposal to cease to maintain HMS "Conway" was duly considered along with the objections to the proposal. Here I acknowledge that the objections to the pro

posal that were received came from every corner of the United Kingdom and many from "old Conways" living abroad. There was no doubt that the type of education they had received was very highly regarded, as were the traditions and discipline of HMS "Conway".
However, my right hon. Friend announced on 10th October this year that, having taken account of the objections to the proposal and of the points made in favour of continuing the school, she had decided on balance to approve the local education authority's proposal to cease to maintain the school. In doing that, my right hon. Friend took careful note of the economic and educational considerations put forward by the local authority.
I must comment about those considerations, First, on the question of the size of the roll, the total complement of places at the school is 210. There had been a steady decline since 1969, and by 1972 the figure was down to 167. I know my hon. and gallant Friend said that about 800 boys applied for entry in that year, but we must face the fact, first, that many of these boys would not be sponsored by their local education authorities and, secondly, that for many of them the standards of "Conway" were too high. These are the standards which "Conway" no doubt rightly set down itself, but the boys were very largely not academically capable of undertaking the courses that were offered.
The decline in the roll has come to mean that the school is very small in relation to its age range of 13 to 18. The school's inability to recruit an adequate number of pupils capable of benefiting from the education offered has meant that from July 1968, when the school became voluntary-aided, to the present date, the authority has sustained a loss of some £242,534, which has been a heavy extra burden on the Cheshire rate fund.

Capt. Elliot: A good many tens of thousands of pounds of that money were depreciation costs, and Cheshire has been using the buildings for its own purposes, and so on.

Mr. Raison: On top of that, however, the authority has had to bear these costs and to bear the fees for the authorities which have not been willing to pay them.
But this was not the only problem which had to be faced. Another problem was that "Conway" boys had in the past, as I understand it, had a considerable advantage in terms of remission of sea service training, but in a sense the other forms of training had caught up with this and this advantage had disappeared.
In addition, there has been a tendency for pupils to seek sixth-form courses leading to university or other further education institutions. The report of the Rochdale Committee of Inquiry questioned the wisdom of beginning serious vocational training before the age of 16 on the ground that a longer and better general education was needed for every child. This is a trend which is widespread in education and is not specific to this area.
There is also the problem that there seems to be an increasing preference for national qualifications rather than for the "Conway" certificate. Therefore, I ask my hon. and gallant Friend to believe that at least there are serious reasons why this decline in the numbers of pupils at "HMS Conway" has taken place.
The question is, what happens now? The difficulty is clear. The Conway Cadet School Company, which provided the premises in which the school is conducted, has been registered as a charity. The company has an interest in the premises of the school by way of a 999-year sub-lease from the Cheshire County Council but, being without endowment, is not in a position to conduct an independent school, nor is there any prospect of a buyer being found for HMS "Conway".
Towards the end of his speech my hon. and gallant Friend came up with the proposal that there might be an appeal with a view to setting up the school on an independent basis. He asked how

the Department would react to the legal operation entailed and to the financial side. We would certainly be willing to help with advice on the procedure by which the operation could take place. We have no objection in principle to the notion that HMS "Conway" should go it alone or stand on her own feet. What I cannot do from this Dispatch Box is to offer the second undertaking, that of providing financial support for the scheme. I am aware that my hon. and gallant Friend will be disappointed by that answer, but I cannot go beyond it.

Captain Elliot: My hon. Friend says that he cannot offer that undertaking from the Dispatch Box. I appreciate that, but perhaps the matter can be looked into.

Mr. Raison: I must be very chary ; I cannot honestly arouse hopes in my hon. and gallant Friend's breast on this score, and it would be misleading of me to do so.
If it is not possible for HMS "Conway" to go independent, that does not mean that the premises come to the end of their useful life. The Cheshire education authority would hold the "Conway" buildings for residential education purposes and preserve the name and some of the traditions of HMS "Conway". That would be useful, but I will not seek to persuade my hon. and gallant Friend that it is an adequate substitute from his point of view for something about which he and many other people feel very deeply.
The passing of HMS "Conway", if it comes about, will be a sad thing, but the difficulties which have cropped up seem to me virtually insoluble.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-four minutes past One o'clock.